Into the Woods
by ShaYneYeofThEcrEatoR
Summary: Rachel is sick. But no one knows quite how bad it is, except for Lance. He doesn't mean too though. For as long as he can remember he's always just... known things. Especially about his twin, who couldn't seem to hide a single thing from him. In the face of this illness Lance feels so absolutely helpless. He wants to do something, no, He has to do something to save her from her fa
1. Chapter 1

The summer night was devoid of any noise. The type of heavy quiet lent by a sweltering humidity. Where no wind stirred the leaves that hung listless from the moss-covered branches as if weary. Whatever sound; the soft hooting of an owl as she woke for this night's hunt, a gentle symphony of cicadas, the errant rev of an engine, deadened almost instantly. The evening was clear and in the absence of city lights a waxing crescent moon was stark against the inky blackness of the sky, each star a pinprick of luminescence.

Within the humble abode that sat just barely past the edge of the dense woods only one window was lit up. The orange flickering glow a sad imitation for starlight. Past the bay, opened wide to invite any wayward breeze inside to cool sweat covered brows, a lopsided circle of candles was lit. Small glims, long tapers, old scented pillars whose aromas had long since faded. These lambent rays caused the shadows of the six children in the bedroom to jump and shift endlessly. They were teenagers really, if barely. They sat huddled at the foot of a bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets.

"-And so we are warned by those who claim to know better than us that only a fool would dare to wander into the woods alone on one of the moonless nights. And if you happen to steal a glance towards the tree line be sure to look away swiftly or you might catch the deep golden eyes of the hell hound. If he catches your scent then forever more you will be hunted. Not far behind this ravenous beast is another much worse… the demon-"

Next to him Hunk let out a terrified squeal and dove quite spectacularly beneath the bundle of knit blankets where his lumpy form shivered. Lance might have rolled his eyes at the other boy's dramatics, but he himself was stiff with fear, his shoulders drawn high and tight, his blue eyes held wide, white's drowning out his irises. Steadily, through-out his sister's story, the young boy had pulled his long legs up to his chest and now hugged against them tightly. His beloved Tiburonsito, an old stuffed shark, the soft fabric matted down from years of similar use, trapped between his stomach and his thighs.

"Whose violet gaze will latch onto not just you, but your soul. Though, some say that even he is a victim, cursed now to drag others down."

Lance couldn't help but jump as two things happened simultaneously.

Veronica lowered the flashlight from beneath her chin, breaking the eerie spell it cast upon her features The yellow glare lending her sun kissed skin a sallow undertone, every expressive line deepened with harsh pitch obscurity.

And Pidge spoke.

"If the dog has golden eyes than it would probably just be a wolf, or a coyote more likely if it was alone like that. They have been known to travel this far south and- hey ow!"

"Okay kill joy-" Veronica shone the torch right at Pidge's face, before switching it off and tossing it to the only sibling older than her in the room. Marco caught it deftly from the air. "Next story coming up!"

Hunk whimpered from behind Lance, somewhere buried within the linens. "I'm sure we're good for tonight right guys?" came his muffled request, at which Lance shot him an unhelpful glare and Pidge executed a much more successful elbow drop into an unknown part of her larger friend, eliciting a muted "ow" from within the plush cocoon. His head came free of the layers, "Come on guys enough scary stories for tonight please"

"Oh stop being such a baby!" Pidge groused.

Usually Hunk's pleads were able to move Lance. But this was the first time in a while he'd been able to see his older brother since he'd started working. "It's still early Hunk, one more?" His friend must have seen something in the other boy's expression, or heard a certain note in the tone, because he groaned and buried himself once more. Rachel was quiet, her large dark eyes set in a face so much like Lance's own, reflected the dancing light of the candles as they looked on.

Marco smirked, the small amount of stubble that had managed to sprout added to his mischievous demeanor. He tossed the flashlight into the air, it flipped once, twice, a third time before he caught it once more.

Veronica and Rachel both rolled their eyes in such a similar manner that Lance wondered for a moment how they were not the twins.

"Show off." Veronica muttered under her breath.

"Alright losers! Are you ready for a real story?" His teeth showed as his smile grew wider. Hunk whimpered, but the rest of the kids leaned forward, eagerness filling their gazes. "Well buckle up~" He pointed at Pidge with the old flashlight, " this one is special for you nit-picker. This one is locally sourced—"

"Hey mine was too!" Veronica protested but Marco spoke over her.

"- And verifiable! Mi abuela used to tell me this one, and you're a braver man than I if you call her a liar. But if you want to, and you're daring enough you could go in search of the truth."

With that he flicked the torch back on, lighting up beneath his chin. Somehow it had a much more malign effect on Marco, whose eyes and cheeks suddenly fell into such jet shade that he appeared in the darkness of the room like a talking skeleton.

Lance re-situated himself, moving his legs back down to a crossed position, clutching onto the stuffed shark. Idly his fingers passed over the top of the toy's head like a worry stone.

"Not so long ago, yet still before you were all born an evil witch moved into our woods, yes! Our very own forest! Yes Hunk right outside those doors. She was on the run from another small town just like ours. Can you guess why?" The young man paused in dramatic affect. In this brief silence not a breath stirred, each of the children holding the air within their lungs, leaned forward with anticipation. Even Hunk had lifted the blanket from his head, peaking out. "Ah, well that is a story for another time I suppose—" Marco continued through the objections, laughter tinting his tone. "You'll know if you ever stumble upon her in the deep woods. To find her you must wander from the known path, to be first unsure, and then lost.

"She's very distinct. With hair as stark white as sun bleached bone, which hangs lank and matted from beneath her hooded cowl. This hides almost all of the details of her features, whether or not she's young or old—"

"Okay but is she hot." A chorus of groans followed Lance's interruption, but he held fast, "I'm asking the important questions here people!"

"No Lance, she's an old hag duh.—"

"But you said—"

"She's a witch! With hideous scars all over her face! That's why she hides it." Marco cleared his throat and ran a hand back through his long unruly hair, obviously scrambling after the threads of his story. "Layers of dusky clothing hang from her withered frame, browns and grays and blacks. Her hands, shaped more like claws, the only other part of her that can be seen. Stained dark with the potions that she mixes.

"While they're hidden by the shadows cast by the hood those who have been unfortunate enough to meet her claim such an odd thing. Her eyes have no color and no pupils, as if she were blind. Some say that from their pale depths you can get a glimpse of your own death- a truly terrible curse indeed. It's because of this that misfortunes follow her around like a plague—"

"Why would anyone visit her then?" Orange candlelight glinted off Pidge's glasses as she straightened them.

A familiar sensation began to build in Lance's chest, creeping up his airways, tightening around his throat, making it harder and harder to breath. This wasn't his own though, and Lance did his best not to look over at Rachel.

The sigh that escaped Marco sounded more like a growl. "Well if you brats would let me finish!" He shot a wilting glare at each and every one of them while Veronica nodded sagely in the background. "it's said—" he paused once more, eyes scanning the young faces, one last time, checking to make sure that no more disruptions were imminent. "That she can grant wishes. For a price of course." Out of the corner of his eyes Lance saw Pidge roll her eyes and from beneath the layers of blankets he almost didn't hear Hunk's snort. If Lance could loosen his voice from the vice grip prison of his throat he might have grumbled about how stories of wishes were for children. They already knew the moral of these sort of tales! Marco pulled in a deep breath, presumably to settle fully into the narrative.

Despite how the apprehensive mood had broken, when Rachel began to cough everyone still jumped. Including Marco. The sound was so sudden in the quiet, so harsh. The flashlight clattered to the floor, rolling beneath the bed where it remained flickering. If she hadn't been coughing Lance was Sure Rachel would have been laughing at them instead for being chickens and startling so easily. But that was Rachel for you, she wasn't scared of anything.

Even though Lance had known it was coming he wasn't the first by her side. That was Pidge, followed by Veronica and a still blanketed Hunk, thick comforter wrapped tightly around him. Multiple pairs of hands began to rub soothing circles across her back through the soft cotton fabric of her lilac pajamas. Murmurings of encouragement and platitudes filled the air around her. It did nothing to help. Rachel's long curling locks drooped in limp twists over her shoulders, which spasmed with each failed inhalation. She hunched over, hacking coughs loosing a wet sound into the room. To Lance it felt as if her own body was trying to kill her and he knew that there was nothing that could be done.

This had happened time and time again.

Lance sighed, knowing how the press of bodies fed into Rachel's anxiety, how much she hated being the center of attention for such a reason as this sickness. How it suffocated her and heightened her coughing. Even in this condition, between each tormented hack she still pushed out false assurances for her friends. Lance knew though, how empty they were. He knew about the panic that curled tightly in her chest whenever those she loved surrounded her during these attacks. Their worry suffocating. She'd never told him this. She didn't have too. It wasn't just because Lance could read her like a book. He felt all of this as if it were his own fears coming to life. He could feel it like a knife in his heart, closing like a hand over her throat. Made her struggle to breathe that much harder. And so, despite the fact that he wished so badly to go to his sister's side along with all of their friends Lance turned. In the face of these fits he felt more than useless. He had to do something. Anything to distract him from this triplicity of feelings; his own utter ineptness the unease and inability to breath, both of which were not his own to begin with. (Even though he knew that he was perfectly fine)

Lance pushed through this cocktail of emotions and sensations and crawled over to his bed, keeping Tiburonsito with him as he went,peaking beneath. Through the messy fall of sheets he spotted the torch in the far corner, up against the wall. It still flashed eerily. Unable to reach it with a simple stretch of his arm he shimmied beneath the frame, fingertips brushing against it until he was able to roll it into his palm and click it off. From beneath the bed he could hear Marco speaking, and as he slowly made his way back out from beneath the frame he saw how his older brother's hands were up in front of him, motioning downwards as he hushed those assembled. Lance tried to shoot him a glare, stuck as he was still under the bed, but before he could say anything Veronica was already speaking, her hissed words cutting through his hushes.

"You know she can't help it!"

"Yeah I know!" Marco hissed back. " I just don't want…"

The door flew open as if a sudden gale had picked up, though somehow it didn't slam into the wall, a skill only a mother could have as she stormed into the room. Despite her short stature the woman filled up the whole of the frame in her rage. (at least from his point of view) Lance could easily imagine that her eyes were glowing in anger. Lance jumped, the back of his head collided with the underside of the box spring. The candles were all blown out as the door flew wide and even from his vantage point Lance could still make out the curling gray smoke as it twisted into the air.

He was the only one who braced for it.

"Dios mio what in the world are you children still doing up?" Her voice joined the fray, startling those who had not yet noticed her presence (somehow) Veronica shrieked, along with Hunk. Their voices rising to the same hilarious pitch. What was even more comical to witness was Marco and Pidge's reaction. A silent, but side splitting show. Lance had finally managed to roll out from under the bed, rubbing the back of his head where a sizable knot was beginning to form.

Marco was standing, fists raised as if ready to fight, and Pidge had fallen back, eyes wide and filled with fear, pupils dashed to small pinpricks as the lights were flicked on.

All gleeful plans of teasing literally everyone in the room save for Rachel (who'd been so startled that she'd held her breath, subsequently halting the cough) were quickly squashed as his eyes finally rose to meet his mama's. They flashed in a cold fury that was only slightly dampened by worry.

Hunk squeaked at the sight of the stout woman and dove back beneath his covers. Every other person in the room stood taller than her and yet the rage that surrounded Lance's mom as a palpable aura shrunk the rest of them. Even his two adult siblings were dwarfed back into children before her.

"Mama—" Marco stepped forward, dropping his hands swiftly. His voice as calm as he could keep it even as Rachel began to cough again, shoulders shaking with the effort to hold them in. the back of her hand pressed against her mouth to stem them further. "we were just having a bit of fun with them, telling stories—"

"You should know better." The ease with which she cut him off mid-sentence was an art form, amazing (if terrifying) to watch. Her tone was crisp and there was no sign of her accent what-so-ever.

"Uh-oh." Lance muttered under his breath, the only one dumb enough o speak in this moment. Whenever her dialect faded like this, specifically around their friends, it meant bad news. The boy flinched as a withering scowl was leveled directly at him.

Rachel's coughing subsided and the small Cuban woman moved her gaze to each individual in the room. Not even his twin was spared and all diminished before it.

"All of you should know better in fact." Rachel wasn't even immune to the lecture. "you most of all. It is your own responsibility to take care of yourself." Just as it felt as if she was entering her stride, she sighed. "unless you would like your friends to go home right now—" These words were harshly emphasized "then I suggest you all go to bed. You." She jabbed her finger right into Macro's chest, "have to work in the morning."

His two older siblings exited, looking down, shoulders slumped and properly chastised. Marco shot a quickly whispered promise to the teens. "Don't worry guys, we'll finish up that witch story some other time!" Mama stood by the door, arms crossed as she watched her orders being followed.

However no amount of parental disapproval could truly stop teenagers from complaining. The few protests that filtered out were only from the twins. Both Rachel and Lance groused about their luck. Where as Hunk and Pidge had both jumped to follow directions. The small bespectacled girl settled beneath the comforter on Rachel's bed just as Hunk bounded onto Lance's, remaining just as bundled as he already was. Lance piled in after him.

Despite her previous anger their mom fussed about, straightening the blankets around her two youngest children. "I'll grab your medicine Rachel, and a glass of water."

"Mom I'm—" Lance felt how the word 'fine' caught against the harsh cough in her throat.

"Callar mi querido y tomar esto."

Somehow through her hacks Rachel was able to speak, if only a little, "but mama- so nasty-hafta?" Lance knew what look his sister was receiving even though mama wasn't facing him.

Lance blinked, his lids growing heavy as a bitter taste flushed across his tongue almost like a memory. The boy shifted in bed, clutching Tiburonsito tightly to him and turning his back to the room, to his mom, to Rachel. Hunk's head was buried beneath the pillows.

"Oh buddy it's okay," Lance murmured, studying the way the blankets shuddered along with the boy beneath them. His vision began to blur along the edges as sleep began to sneak upon him. "you're such a wimp."

There was no telltale sign over the normal sighs of his small home in the deep night; the settling of old boards and the low hum of electricity. But Lance still knew how badly his two older siblings were getting berated. And he could feel exactly how the guilt twisted Rachel's heart up into a knot. A cold sensation that reached its icy grip across the small distance between their beds and curled skeletal fingers around Lance's as well.

Anytime Lance had tried to tell his friends about this strange sharing of emotions and sensations that went from Rachel to him they'd teased him for having some magical twin connection. Only she'd never felt any of Lance's pain, never experienced his happiness or his sadness with him as he did with her. They'd even gone so far as to test it out. And gotten in trouble in the process to boot!

"Oh no Lance I'm never gonna be able to sleep!" Hunk moaned, lifting the pillow from his face. "What if that demon comes to take our souls?"

"Shuddup Hunk none of those stories were real!" Pidge spoke in a voice just barely above a whisper, most likely in fear of summoning Lance's mama to the room again.

"It's gonna be fine big guy-ignore her—" Lance began to hum very softly. Even if he agreed with Pidge that didn't mean he wanted to hurt Hunk's feelings. He was simply, endearingly exasperated.

His own voice began to grow farther and farther away, harmonizing with the soft breathing of the two girls. Hunk's trembling subsided but Lance only vaguely registered this as he teetered over the edge of sleep.

Rachel began to cough again, the sound harsher in the darkness. The lullaby Lance had started jarred to a halt and he pursed his lips and screwed his eyes shut tight in a vain attempt to ignore her and her ragged, broken breathing. Soon after Hunk's snores filled the room despite.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite how it seemed as if neither of the twins would be getting any sleep that night, Lance at the very least, dropped down into a restless not quite slumber.

He felt as if he were floating in warm salt water, rocked gently by the ocean waves in this space somewhere between waking and sleeping. He might have even been able to slip into restful dreams.

The water grew cold. Almost unnoticeable at first. In fact until the boy began to shiver, he hadn't perceived it at all. As soon as the thought to get out and warm up crossed the boy's mind he was yanked beneath the surface. Dragged under, as if many hands were gripping around his arms and legs, around his neck and chest. No matter how hard he struggled he couldn't get free.

Eventually he ran out of air.

Bubbles shot out from his mouth as he gasped, water flooding down his throat.

He couldn't breathe! He couldn't breathe! He couldn't breathe!

Was this how Rachel felt?

That notion alone was enough to trigger a change. Lance wasn't sure what happened but he was released and all the water around him began to rush downwards.

He landed on something hard and somehow chillier than the water he was choking up from his lungs. Air sweeter than sugar expanded his chest and he gulped it down greedily. Almost too slowly Lance became aware of his surroundings.

He was wearing his usual clothes, jeans and a baseball shirt, which were just as soaked as he, dripping with icy water. Fluorescent lights blinded him. He blinked the water and blurriness away. His eyelids felt heavy, as if they didn't want to stay open. Lance heard his mother's voice from far away. But he could neither make out her words nor see her. Her calls grew closer and closer, until he could finally understand what she was saying.

"Minino! Donde estas?" It was like they were in a fog, sound mutable, only around him the too bright light had receded enough to reveal impossibly clean tiles of a sterile hospital hallway. Though mama was still nowhere in sight. "Vamanos Lance! Your sister is waiting for you!" Even as his lids fell closed in a slow weighted manner that made it feel like this one action took half a lifetime, Lance could still see. The very edges of his vision were grayed and blurring. "Oh mi lo que paso? Why are you soaking wet? You're such a mess—"

"Lo siento—" Lance tried to say, mouth open, lips forming the sound. But nothing came out, his own voice lost. The panic that he'd been trying and failing to ignore reared up like a beast within him, setting his pulse to racing as bile stuck to the back of his throat thickly.

"Come on slow poke catch up!" This time it was Veronica who spoke, sounding as if she were further down the hall. And even though he couldn't see his family Lance began to stumble forward. The passageway narrowed and lengthened around him like a fun house ride, the smell of sickness barely covered by chemicals grew with each step.

"Rachel needs you hurry!"

"Wait for me por favor!" This would have been a shout but still he had no voice. Lance fell, jarring every bone from his knees upward as he landed on them before scrambling to a stand again. Still he ran. Shadow people lined the walls, those souls of the ill and dying all reaching for him as he followed yet more calls for him. The voices of Luis and Marco joining the confusing cacophony.

IV lines shot out and circled his limbs, tangling and tripping. The door at the end of the hall grew no closer despite his pounding steps. Machine's began to beep beep BEEP incessantly in the background, drowning out the pleas of his family.

"I can't hear you! Where'd you go?" Still there were no words and yet Lance screamed. His gait slowed as he began to scratch desperately at his throat. Peeling away at his flesh to free his voice.

The door was suddenly right before him. His body slammed painfully into it, crashing through.

This time his free fall was not accompanied by water and yet the air was still stolen from his lungs.

He landed on his back, when he tried to move his limbs he found that they were strapped down to an exam table. He thrashed around but to no avail. It wasn't until he settled down enough that he looked around. Finally noticing the nurses and doctors all standing in a silent row to his left. Each held a different tool. They looked strange to Lance. He wasn't sure how long it took him to process this, the nurses weren't wearing the average scrubs, but gray dresses from times past, with white aprons tied snug. Lance couldn't make out their faces, covered by masks and shadows. One held a bowl, water sloshing over the edges as she, and she alone, trembled. The rest stood as still as stone. Another held a tray of utensils, yet a third held towels. He couldn't crane his neck enough o see what the others held and he wasn't sure he wanted too.

"L-lance…" The boy jumped at the sound of his own name. His neck cracked as he snapped his head around.

Rachel lay on a table much like his own, her usual radiant skin pale with sickness, voice hoarse. "Lance help me."

A soundless sob escaped and he mouthed to her, "I want to, I just don't know how."

"Of course you do." A voice Lance didn't recognize drew his gaze to a tall doctor, imposing form standing right over him. "Nurse." He held out a gloved hand, and a faceless woman stepped forth, handing him a wicked and ancient looking saw. "If your sister gets new lungs she'll heal… yours should suffice."

Lance's eyes widened with fear, the blue within them a frosted color.

"Lance please." Rachel's voice was so weak, but he wasn't even given a chance to answer before the sound of flesh rending ripped through the air as Rachel repeated his name over and over.

"Lance… Lance- LANCE!"

The boy jolted upright from the uncomfortable chair he was sitting in.

"Wha—" The cool wetness of drool dribbling down his chin woke him further and Lance looked around, disoriented. "Donde estoy?" They were in a hallway that looked so eerily like the one in his nightmare he wasn't entirely sure he was fully awake, as if the dream clung to him and the scene would at any moment dissolve. But it did not and Veronica's perfectly shaped eyebrow was raised at him in question.

"Que quieres decir? We're at the hospital duh."

Self-consciously Lance wiped at his jaw, feeling the flush of his cheeks. His voice was back as it should be, and yet he couldn't string together a few words to answer his older sibling. The awful too bright lights were the same, along with that smell of barely hid infection. Lance couldn't shake the fear from the vision that had haunted him in his slumber. Whether they were his own fears made tangible or Rachel's, he couldn't quite tell.

"Weren't…" He cleared his throat and yet as he spoke his words remained at a whisper. "Weren't we just in… a different one?"

"Que? You say something?" Veronica's gaze had already returned to the vogue magazine she held as their niece and nephew fidgeted and jumped around them. When Lance didn't reply right away her eyes flicked back up to him. "You okay? You're a bit pale." Lance gulped, wondering if he should confide in her. He shook his head, as much to argue with himself (after all he wasn't some kid, and he also wasn't the one who needed the worry or attention) as he was answering Veronica.

"'m fine- just zoning." He was relieved when she didn't pry further. He didn't want her to fret over him.

His niece Nadia laughed and hopped up onto his lap. "You were caught daydreaming!"

"Papa says it's no good to have your head up in the clouds." Sylvio added knowledgeably.

"It'd be better than being stuck in this agujero de meirda! It's summer! We're s'posed to be out having fun!" The two children were nodding in simultaneous agreement (a rare occasion indeed) both of their bottom lips pouting out.

"Cuidado con lo que dices." Veronica's tone held no sort of inflection and she didn't even glance up from her magazine. "You're parents are at work right now so you're stuck with us for now."

Lance was still trying to catch up. It felt as if he'd missed a step. He discreetly pinched himself, when a twinge of pain dashed up from his inner arm he shook his head once more. He was definitely not dreaming. He started to piece together his day, he couldn't quite believe he let so much time slip away from him like that.

"I'm so sick of doctors though!" Nadia huffed, crossed her arms over her chest and fell back into one of the cushioned chairs heavily. This was a sentiment Lance echoed. They'd been to so many doctor's offices in the past year. This was just the next one in line. He wondered if they'd ever stop. How many would there be? More specialists? Going and going and going until one finally gave them good news?

"Lance?" He wasn't sure how long that last train of thought had lasted, but his sister had actually put down the magazine and was waving her hand in front of his face. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He shrugged. "I just wish I'd stayed home—" as soon as he'd spoken he wished he hadn't. How selfish could he be? Guilt like a claw twisted in his gut. It's not like Rachel got to choose. His twin had to suffer through this. The least he could do was be there for her.

"You can't stay home by yourself!" Sylvio looked personally affronted by this concept. Lance returned the look, glad for the momentary distraction and excuse to not give his older sister a real answer.

"I'm thirteen! I don't need a babysitter anymore!" he spun away from the brat theatrically, only to be faced with Veronica once more. She didn't look convinced but Lance couldn't think of anything to say.

"I …. I uh think I'm just thirsty."

Again he was met with a skeptical brow raise. "You think?"

Lance ignored her and stood. "I'll be right back!" He announced, cringing inwardly at his own awkwardness as he sped away from the small waiting area, trying to ignore how much like his dream this narrow hallway was. It was somehow harder to breathe away from his suffocating family. His need for some water doubled and he licked his lips.

As he walked he checked his pocket, two nickels and a penny was all he found, which meant no vending machine. Looked like he'd hafta find a fountain. He reached a T junction, leaning over to look one way, and then the other. There were so many doors down each one. Lance chose at random. He passed empty room after empty room. Voices, and sometimes crying filtered through the closed ones.

Lance walked faster.

Another intersection came up and the boy groaned, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and hunching his shoulders as he continued on. It felt like he'd die of thirst if he didn't find a damn fountain soon.

It wasn't like he was lost per se. In these twisting aseptic hallways… no not at all….

A familiar voice brought Lance up short, his mom's. His head spun around, but his mama wasn't in sight. His heart began to race, this was too much like his dream. She even sounded…. Upset.

But it wasn't quite like the dream. For her voice became clearer as he neared one specific, closed, door. Lance was even able to make out the words as he stepped up to it.

Lance knew he shouldn't eavesdrop. But even as he argued with himself he was also looking around to make sure he was alone in this wing. He crept closer, turning his head. He almost wished someone would come along, as if another's presence would make him realize how wrong his actions were, he'd be properly shamed and would return to Veronica, Sylvio and Nadia.

But that didn't happen and he ever so carefully put his ear against the grain of the door. For a moment this muffled the voices further, until Rachel spoke.

"Mom I'm thirsty."

"Dr. Sanda- hush me nina- I'm sorry could you…. Could you explain… again?" Lance could imagine it all so clearly. Rachel sitting on the table, his mama clutching her rosary as her brows furrowed in worry.

He heard a sigh as clear as day and Lance couldn't be sure, but he imagined a look of irritation upon this "doctor's" features.

"Mrs. McClain, I know it's a lot to take in—"

"That my daughter has this… this…lymphoma….Lymphera…" his mother's tongue couldn't curl around the foreign word.

"Lymphangioleiomyomatosis. Yes—" Lance pictured that this shitty doctor had evil looking glasses that caught the light as she spoke. No one talked to his mama like that!

"Wow that's a mouthful hehe—" Rachel spoke into the silence, which had stretched on a bit too long. A painfully obvious attempt at lightening the mood. She was so brave. So much braver than him.

Lance's chest was tightening, like a hole had opened up where his heart should be, pulling everything down into it until he was nothing but empty.

"But what does it mean… is it… is it a cancer?" mama choked up on the very last word, it was this sound, more than anything, that placed a lump into Lance's throat.

"No it's not. But it is terminal."

"Meaning there's no cure then?" A short pause that kept Lance's breath a cage in his chest and set his teeth on edge as his jaw clenched painfully tight. "But there must be something!"

"There are… medications. Very expensive medications that would slow the growth of the cells in the lungs, and others that can stop the formation of cysts. But in the end there's no way to save her. She doesn't have long left with how far the disease has—"

Lance didn't want to hear anymore, but before he'd even decided that their voices had began to fade. Not because he'd moved away. A fog descended over his thoughts.

His movements were mechanical as he marched back to Veronica and the kids, his world shrank to his next step.

Maybe…. Maybe he'd heard something wrong. Heck he barely understood half the words even used! Maybe… this had all been a part of his nightmare, that he'd never really woken up.


	3. Chapter 3

Shock must have dulled Lance's mind, blurring the rest of that afternoon. If he tried to remember what happened when he made it back to the pitifully small waiting area Lance could vaguely recall Veronica making fun of him for how long he'd taken, implying with an inquiry that he'd perhaps run into a pretty girl. Even the panic he'd felt in that moment had been muted.

When mama had come to gather them all up and take them home Lance hadn't been able to meet Rachel's gaze.

His mind had run in the same loop for he wasn't even sure how long. He must have misheard something. It might have been the wrong room! Some other mother and dying daughter, and he hated himself for even hoping such a thing.

And now? Well now Lance was sitting alone in his room, cross legged atop his bed. Tiburonsito resting in his lap, unsure of how much time had passed he idly flipped through one of his many comics, eyes static upon the pages. He couldn't say which hero's adventure he'd picked up and he certainly wasn't reading.

"Hey Lance." Rachel seemed to materialize out of nowhere, leaning over her twin, face inches from him. Without meaning too he scrambled backwards on the bed, comic slipping from his lap. His eyes already averted.

Rachel straightened up, hands on her hips and eyebrow raised. "You've been super out of it all day man.

She was acting so natural…. So… so normal. How did she do that? Still though, if she could behave like nothing had happened…. Maybe it really hadn't? Lance allowed this hope to plant into his heart like a seed, clutching it in a tight desperation.

Lance's gaze flicked up to hers finally, and she smirked. "There you are!" The smile he returned was tentative. A small part of him wanted to ask her but he was too afraid of the truth, and so instead the question that slipped from his lips was an unintended one.

"Rachel, do you ever… you really never like…. Know how I'm feeling do you?"

A look of worry passed over her features and she sat on the edge of the bed, shaking her head. "you already know Lance…" She pulled his hands into hers. "And you… you still feel mine?"

For a moment Lance thought about denying it, lying to retain some sense of the ordinary, until dread like an abyss swallowed him. His eyes widened as he stared at Rachel. This is what she was feeling right now?

"I thought so."

Before Lance could saying anything, before he could even try to salvage the small seed of hope that he'd barely planted, giggling broke through the loaded silence as Nadia and Sylvio chased each other down the hall and slammed through the doorway, left ajar by his sister.

"Come on guys dinnertime!"

The dread that filled Lance was impossible to untangle from the same exact emotion that Rachel was suddenly burdened with.

Neither of them could meet the other's gaze as they turned and faced the hallway. The kids already sped from the room their shouts of "dinnertime" ringing through the abode. To Lance, and to Rachel, the walk to the dining table felt like a funeral march.

It was by the ingenuity of family that all twelve of them were able to fit at the dinner table, sitting elbow to elbow as the meal was served. Every single one of them, even the smallest, could tell that something was off. Lance knew because each adult was tensed, and the two younger ones obviously felt this in the very air, and sat in anxious silence. Never before had their supper been so quiet.

It was the first time in a long while that the whole of them were all able to sit down together, what with everyone's work schedules it was nigh impossible outside of the big holidays.

That alone was warning enough.

The conversation that managed to push through this pressure was stunted, all attempts halting and awkward. Lance held no appetite, but his abuelita continued to pile more food onto his plate, her gentle knowing smile enough to work some of the fear from his system. She even managed to coax out a few bites from the boy. Though each one fell like a stone down his gullet, settling heavily in his stomach.

"quedarse con nosotros Lance." Her request was like an anchor, and he tried to hold onto that sense of normalcy, her rickety voice, the calming way in which the language of her home rolled off her tongue.

He was thankful that, for once, attention passed over him, such a far cry from normal, and yet nobody noticed.

Lance didn't know what to expect… were his parents just going to hide it from the rest of them? Lance doubted that he could keep this big of a secret for any amount of time. He couldn't really figure out which scenario would be worse though. An outpouring of this nightmarish truth or an illusion that played out until the very last mortal moment.

When their mama finally spoke though Lance knew exactly what he'd rather have happen. And it was not this.

She stood and cleared her throat. Lance had thought it'd been quiet before, but instantly the room deadened, the clacking of silverware was the last sounds before those too stilled. Until the table itself was as silent as a cemetery.

The deep breath his mama pulled in shook, and it was this alone that broke Lance.

The boy couldn't hear this. He couldn't face the rest of the family and see their faces as Mama explained exactly how his other half was dying. It would solidify this…. Make it real.

Right as he was jumping up, so violently that his chair clattered to the floor, the clamor sounding somehow louder in this deathly quiet, Rachel's hand shot out to grab his own that was already out of reach. Lance could feel how much she needed him to stay there with her.

But he just couldn't.

Lance ran from the table. Ran from the room. Ran from the house.

Ran from his family.

The humidity of the night was like a solid wall as soon as he got outside, heavy air dragging at him and muting his family's calls of "LANCE!" and "COME BACK" that would have otherwise rung after him.

The last thing he heard- "where are you going?" Stuck in his head like a curse. He had no idea. Some how his body kept pushing even as panic curled around his thoughts.

Before he knew it Lance was right outside Hunk's house. Body pressed up against the door, fists pounding franticly. When his best friend answered Lance almost hit him as well.

"What's up La-woah." Hunk took a step back as the boy fell into the entryway. His expression swiftly shifted into a look of worry.

"Hunk dear who's at the door?" The larger boy pulled Lance into a one armed hug. It wasn't until this moment that he realized the wracking sobs that tore thru his body. The heavy breathes which turned each inhale into shattered glass. He tried to hold his breath, to gain some semblance of control over it as Hunk's mom came to the archway between the living room and dining room. There wasn't even a lull in the conversation that drifted through the house.

"It's Lance!" Hunk spoke over his shoulder, keeping him hidden from view.

"Well invite him in for dinner!"

He was shaking his head before the invitation was even finished being spoken.

"Uh I don't think he's hungry- Can I grab a plate and eat up in my room?"

"Sure sweety!" The confusion was clear in her voice but Hunk was already pushing Lance towards the stairs, his own concern painfully clear on his features. "What for me—" He mouthed before spinning and rushing away.

"Is he okay honey?" Lance heard Hunk's mom ask in a tone that matched with Lance's own mother so perfectly that the Cuban boy felt a fresh wave of panic cresting over him, ready to pull him under.

He stumbled up the stairs, using his hands to help balance at points. Once in his friend's room he sat by the other boy's dresser, leaving the lights off, as if hiding, and tried to focus on his breath. But it didn't work. He wished he hadn't forgotten Tiburonsito back on his bed at home, though he knew even that wouldn't help…. Nothing would. His sister was still sick.

Instead of calming himself down Lance worked himself up higher, spiraling with wonderings of what his family was doing in that moment. Had they postponed this morbid talk, were Marco and Luis even now searching all of Lance's usual hiding spots for him? Like the attic, the river bank? He couldn't stay here for long if that were the case.

Or maybe…. Maybe they'd had the conversation without him. If his reaction was anything to go by it was so painfully clear that he already knew. He'd bolted before a single word could even be said.

Either way Lance knew that when he did go back he'd be in for a viniendo a la conferencia de jesus. But that anxiety was so very small compared to the others.

"Lance?" It felt as if he had been waiting for Hunk to return for a lifetime. "Where are you?" He wanted to jump up to Hunk, to be safe in his friend's protective arms again, but instead he flinched away from the inquiring voice as the light flipped on, scrunching in tighter against the shelving. But the small movement was still enough to give away his position.

"Lance buddy, what's wrong…"

The boy had manged to quiet his crying, though wayward tears still tracked down his olive cheeks.

But as Hunk sat on the floor next to him Lance's loose grip on what little control he'd managed to reign in slipped, and once more his resolve crumbled, only this time he felt as it happened, the world falling away from beneath his feet.

For a long while there could be no words, only the salt of his misery and sobs that shook him to the rhythm of gentle, circling hands upon his back.

This is where Pidge found her two best friends.

Lance had heard, but barely registered as she bounded up the stairs, but her voice pulled him completely from his woe with a strangled gasp, pulling in the last wrenching whimper. "Hey Hunk, your mom let me in, said Lance was her and-oh…" She halted in the doorway, body rocking backwards from her momentum, weight of a backpack over her shoulder and a console beneath her arm making her teeter for a moment.

"Uh… what's going on in here?" She readjusted her glasses as her eyes shifted to the side. Pidge had never been one for emotional displays.

Lance hiccuped, holding his breath back completely. He knew the girl didn't handle tears well.

"I think it might have something to do with Rachel?" Hunk murmured, his hand not slowing at all.

Those words alone were enough to break down the dam Lance was desperately trying to build up, and breath broke out of him along with more wails.

"W-what can I do?" Pidge dropped her things onto Hunk's bed and knelt next to them, obviously not as practiced at this comfort thing as Hunk was, but her small hands joined his regardless, resting upon Lance's shaking shoulder.

Hunk's guess was enough to also tear through the barricade of his words, which came rushing out of him, broken and gasped out between his weeping.

Lance freed this heavy secret.

Thankfully there wasn't much to say.

But now…. Now it was spoken, out in the open.

Real.

He felt no better having shared his burden.

Oh dios Rachel was dying.


	4. Chapter 4

Pidge ran to get Lance a glass of water (any excuse to not be around such a display he assumed) and Hunk helped the shattered boy to his bed. It felt like he was all cried out, but salty wetness still tracked from the corners of his ocean eyes. Exhaustion dragged at his body, no longer sustaining the full quaking laments. Right beneath his lids itched, but he couldn't even muster the effort it would take to rub at them.

The next thing he was aware of was Pidge's voice, "Lance, the water is right here on the nightstand if you'd like it." Her voice seemed so small, and so far away. He tried to focus on her. When had she even returned? What had the two of them been talking about?

Distantly he processed that there was a third voice, and in a vague sort of way Lance understood that he should care about that. What if it was one of his older siblings? Or worse yet, his parents…. But why…. Why would that be a bad thing again?

"—a hold of his grandma, she was the only one at the house—" The sounds were grating in his head painfully, and he scrunched up his features, turning into the soft down pillows. "—rest of them—looking—" words were doing no more than weaving in and out of his understanding, and eventually they were replaced with the muted sounds of one of Pidge's video games, and after that, there was nothing.

Lance woke with a headache, unable to pin when he had even fallen asleep. All he knew at the moment was that rays of sunlight too bright to be for the early morning, streamed into a room that was not his own. And that he was basically dying of thirst.

Dying.

The word hung on gossamer thread strangely in Lance's mind, before that twine snapped and everything came crashing down along with it.

Lance shot up and instantly his world began to spin, each tilt another driving screw into his skull.

"Oh hey buddy—" Hunk was, of course, the one who dropped his controller first, scrambling up onto the bed. "Good morning."

Lance wasn't sure how to respond. Sure he knew what would normally be said…. But nothing would be normal ever again. So Lance didn't say anything. With Hunk's help he finished sitting up, arm moving lethargically, fumbling towards the night stand.

"Woah, geez Lance could you be more clumsy?" Pidge's voice was held in an obviously pseudo bright tone as she pushed the cup into the boy's searching grasp.

It was thankfully silent as Lance gulped down every last drop. Thought he could practically taste the bitterness in his water of all the words that remained unsaid…. That would probably be unloaded here any moment. He finished, gaze falling downwards. His slim shoulder's hunched down as his posture became a protective barrier between them all.

"So…" Pidge blew air into the side of her cheek before releasing it. No more words came from her.

Hunk stepped in after an uncomfortable stretch of silence.

"You're not in trouble or anything, that's what your parents want you to know first of all, but—" Lance snorted and took a quick peak at his two friends up through his messy bangs. Neither of them could quite look at him.

Did they have any idea what was really going on?

"Your mom called after we talked to grandma. She said that you have to come home as soon as you're up." Hunk looked so apologetic and Lance wanted to reassure him somehow.

"I can't go home!" Is what came out of his mouth instead.

"Lance—"

"I don't know what to do Hunk!" His head snapped to look at Pidge as if she might have some sort of answer, she always did. Her name dropped from his lips as a plea, "Pidge, you guys gotta think of something! There's gotta be a way…" His eyes stung, but it seemed as if he were well and truly all cried out.

"We're not doctor's Lance—" Pidge stated, but instead of the hard edge that Lance had grown used to hearing in her tone, her voice wobbled. If Lance was capable of feeling anything else he may have allowed guilt to sour in his gut, which now grumbled.

"We can't figure anything out on an empty stomach." Hunk's hands wrung around each other, clearly the boy was at a lost for what else to do. That was right, he'd skipped dinner. That was not even a worry in his head at the moment though, and the realization was a distant, vague one, overshadowed by this gnawing fear.

"I'm not hungry—" Lance mumbled, bringing his knees up to his chest and curling in around himself. "And I can't go home." The finality in his tone was recognizable. He could almost bet that Pidge and Hunk were exchanging a look.

"Lance we really do want to help… but… how bout we just come over later today? After you've talked to your family."

"And uh…. Marco will be here soon to take you home!" Pidge put in, obviously trying to be useful.

"What?" Lance squawked, the same panic that had been held over him like a guillotine, that had not abated in the slightest, sent him scrambling too quickly off the bed and he almost fell, barely regaining his balance his head gave a vengeful throb.

Blue eyes were blown wide, mind clambering after a way to avoid this- when his movements all but stopped.

"I think we broke him." Pidge fell back into the spot that Lance had just vacated.

The quiet stretched on, with Hunk's brows drawing closer and closer together.

"It's almost like you can see the wheels turning." Pidge whispered, leaning towards Hunk.

"Uh Lance, are you—"

"That's it!" The boy was suddenly on the move again, searching the floor for his shoes, which Hunk must have removed for him after he'd passed out.

"What's it?" Pidge leaned forward, her curiosity piqued.

"I think I missed a step—" Hunk's concern had only grown.

"The Witch guys!" Lance practically shouted as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The other two straightened up. "I'm sorry what?" Pidge voiced what they were both obviously thinking, if Hunk's expression was anything to go by.

"You know! The witch in the woods! Remember Marco said she grants wishes!"

"Oh Lance—"

"Dude that was a story." Pidge reached out to him, her expression one of incredulity.

"Don't!" Lance snatched his arm back, "don't." He knew that he was grasping at straws. He knew how insane and desperate he sounded. He knew that this small ray of hope was nothing more than a candle's flame, any wayward breath of reason would cast him back into darkness. He yanked on his shoes swiftly not even bothering to tie them as he turned his back to his friends and stomped out of the room to calls of his name. Lance jumped the last few steps of the stairs. He'd run to the woods if he had too.

"You kids better be ready for a big breakfast!" Hunk's mom's warm voice bubbled out from the kitchen along with the low hum of conversation.

The smells wafting from that direction, usually so delicious, made Lance's stomach turn. Quickly, before anything or anyone else could stop him he spun towards the door, yanking it open with nary a goodbye and dashed out—

-right into Marco.

"Woah there lil bro where do you think you're going?" The laughter that was usually rampant in every aspect of Marco's character was missing. His brother's tone muted in its absence. "Can't have you running off again."


	5. Chapter 5

The next few minutes dragged by, sand seemed to stop flowing down the glass neck, as Marco dragged Lance back inside, thanking and apologizing in tandem, and about a million times.

Moments after Marco had caught him Pidge and Hunk came crashing down the stairs. Halting with eyes wide as they took in the sight of the brothers. It would have almost been comical, if Lance could feel anything. The entire time this was all happening his two friends were trying to communicate with looks and almost imperceptible gestures.

But Lance ignored them, keeping his gaze down turned. Did they think they could stop him? How would they even go about helping him in this insane endeavor? A plan was already forming in his head, and he didn't want any logic coming in and picking it apart. It was all he had.

Finally they were out in the car and Lance could finally breathe a small sigh of shallow relief. He had simply traded one situation he didn't want to be in for another.

At first the silence that stretched between them was unnatural. They were two peas in a pod, always ready with stories and witty quips. Lance had learned everything he knew from this particular older sibling. This quiet was a stranger to them, and now it was an outsider that filled the space betwixt them.

And yet, despite how much Lance hated this, he was so much more afraid of when it would end. Of what would be said. He tried to spend this gift of a calm moment wisely. To come up with a new plan, one that would get him out of this car, and not straight into his parent's waiting arms. But everything he managed to think up was a bust. Nothing would work!

They almost made it to the house when Lance made the mistake of thinking that he was home free.

"I uh…. I know you know…. What's happening." Marco's words were halted, eyes shifting back and forth on the road as if looking for the right ones to say, like they would appear on a street sign if only he noticed it. "I don't know how you know but…. Ya know what, mama doesn't want me saying anything actually." He changed gears in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. "You were totally trying to escape again weren'tcha! And I caught you haha."

Lance simply crossed his arms defensively over his chest and hunkered down into his seat.

"Man Abuelita called it too! She warned me to be punctual, or you might … how did she put it again, she has such a great sense of humor…'resbalar a traves de mis dedos' as she said…. Oh but her tone was the real kicker! Just imagine this…"

Marco settled into a more natural rhythm for himself, one hand coming off the steering wheel to gesture freely in the air, where before they'd been clenched and white knuckled. Lance couldn't fathom how the man was able to do this…. Talk so lightly about things…. As if nothing were going on. "…you know how she is, she started going off about all the inevitable things of the world. Las bendiciones de la familia…"

The boy leaned forward, his interest piqued. "What else… what else did she say?"

"Oh nothing that made any sense. Anciana loca, always talking in riddles. 'Lance will always find his way to the woods, Rachel will be fine—'" Once more his grip was tightening over the wheel. "Monton de mierda." Marco spat out as he turned into their driveway. "Anyway, mama and papi wanna talk to you fir—Lance! Hey Lance!"

Before the car had even fully stopped Lance had flung the door open, slipped like water from his seat belt, and ran pell-mell straight for the line of trees.

His grandma's blessing was all the permission he needed.

"Come back! Dude come on! Mama's gonna kill me!" His voice faded with as the distance between them grew.

This run was so different than the night before. The previous evening fear had driven him. Now it was hope that coursed through his veins like fire, spurring the rush of adrenaline. Not even once he reached the cool of the shade did he slow. Lance's legs pumped, feet sinking ever so slightly into the soft sediment, hot air whipping at his face. Tears stung at his eyes, blurring the trees as he flew past them.

The constant drone of insects interrupted only as he neared, picking back up once he flew by. Cicadas quieted in a rolling wave, resuming their song almost immediately. The only sound that remained level besides the pounding of his own heart in his ears was the chirping of whippoorwills and warblers, who seemed to simply follow him out of curiosity. The emanation of wet earth and tree sap permeated the air around him so thickly that at times it was a chore to drag in his panted breaths. Every so often he passed an area that gave him a more acrid whiff of underlying decay.

First his feet tread the well worn path of afternoon hikes and midnight rendezvous (the former a loved pastime of his, the latter not yet known to him) but before too long, before he was even aware of it, the forest floor turned uneven and tricky. And still he ran.

'In order to find her, you gotta be lost…' Marco's words echoed in Lance's head.

Did it still count if he was already so very lost?


	6. Chapter 6

The sun was steadily climbing higher and higher, but within the dense tangle of the forest it was all dark browns and rich verdant greens. Even within this deep shape the sweltering heat mounted.

Still Lance ran on. Sweat like a suffocating blanket draped over him, soaking through his clothing and sticking it to his skin in gross, dragging swaths. But he was able to ignore it, for now. Wide blue eyes flicked back and forth in a near feverish delirium. Catching on a bramble of blackberry blossoms, soft petals with barely the first flush of pink upon them, before sliding past and landing on the husk of an old rotted out log, fresh greenery growing out of the decay. He almost tripped over this, lunging past it at the very last moment.

Despite the stark contrast Lance almost missed the first flash of pure white in the gloom. Fuzzy with the high temperatures his mind interpreted the movement as the mere flash of a wing, the fall of a feather. He turned towards it as if on instinct alone, some long lost, blood deep push to simply follow.

It wasn't even the second time he thought he saw the long strands, catching almost silver in an odd ray of sunlight that managed to break through the mossy canopy, for perhaps it could have been an elaborate spiders web, woven for the sole purpose of capture.

It was not even the third time, though as the curling locks were whipped out of sight Lance blinked, droplets of sweat slid down into his eyes, setting a sting to them as he focused on the tree where the movement had been… or at least where he'd thought it was…

The boy rubbed at his eyes, noticing for the first time the aches in his own body, leg muscles cramping as they were finally given a rest. Thirst scratched up his throat like a wild beast attempting to escape. Exhaustion pulling at his limbs. Looking around him, all of these and more clouding his thoughts, unsure of what to do next, and yet unwilling to give up this one fleeting hope quite yet.

Before Lance had to figure out his next step a figure shifted in the mid-distance, moving away from him. It wasn't so much the strangeness of the unlikely possibility of running into someone else out here (was his heart rate going this fast simply because he'd been running?) No…. it was the color of the long hair, flowing behind her like a cloak.

The witch… he had found her.

His heart skipped up into his throat, blocking his voice as his lips formed the word 'wait.'

Before he could even blink though her mysterious figure had disappeared yet again. Shifting behind another tree as if she were one. Before he realized it Lance's long legs were pumping once more. Vision tunneling to the last place he'd seen her…. Or was it over there? His head snapped back and forth so quickly he almost missed the next glimmer of pristine, trailing hair; to the far right, back from where he'd been he thought.

With a pivot his feet slid in the sediment. His gaze couldn't manage to lock on, and again she had vanished. The boy used one of the curse words he'd often heard his father grunt out when he was doing something difficult, spinning in place Lance grew dizzy with it, almost giddy.

It continued on like this, the youth gaining ground, losing ground. These teasing glimpses lead him in random, contradicting directions.

Twisting roots caught up his sneakered feet. Each time this happened he managed to catch himself. Each almost fall brought a gasped giggle to the very edge of his lips. Until the final time when he simply tripped over his own feet. Skidding into the dirt as the air was pushed out of his lungs.

He stayed like this, splayed across the ground, breathe wheezing in and out of aching lungs, for who knows how long. Until, with a grunt Lance rolled onto his back.

"Dios mio soy tan tonto—" He muttered, pressing the heels of his hands tight against his lids. Hadn't Pidge always told him that she was the brains of their little group? He'd never really been the best at making well thought out decisions. Maybe he should have listened to them…. Or his family…. Or heck even if his poor crazy abuela hadn't meant this at all. Hadn't meant anything by her words. If he'd just—

"Are you okay?"

One of the most beautiful voices Lance had ever heard rang out, lilting in a foreign accent, the type the boy had only heard on his Tia's tele-novellas.

Lance shot up, head snapped to the right, and then the left, eyes scanning the gnarled trunks that surrounded him so densely. He blinked his eyes, rubbing knuckles across them. Almost convinced he had simply made the voice up, hearing things on top of seeing them…. Great. With a grunt he fell back into the soft dirt.

"You have been laying there for quite a while."

Again that voice! Once more Lance's head sprang back up so swiftly it gave a resounding crack. But still there was no one in sight.

Perhaps… he was going crazy. He snorted. After all he was out here in the woods, looking for a bruja as if magic could fix everything… could save his sister…. As if magic even existed at all.

Lance relaxed into the fallen leaves and sediment. It was the middle of summer, so they were not fresh, they did not crunch in a satisfactory manner as he did this, and only the earthy odor of long botanical decay rose up around him, not the crisp aroma that autumn lent the forest. The rest of his energy draining from him.

"You were almost upright again!" This time there was laughter in the tone.

But this time Lance didn't have to look around. There was a face hovering right above his own. Hair as soft and as pearlescent as clouds, thick curling locks even shaped like the most perfect of billowing nimbus fell about a flawlessly angular, practically angelic features, housed within a dusky complexion that almost mirrored his own, that contrasted in such a lovely way with her mane and settled around his head, brushing up against his ears and cheeks like the caress of a long lost friend. Small, simple markings at the corner of her eyes glowed in a soft cerise. Oh her eyes, which refracted the jade of the forest light into a jeweled prism of cerulean and rose, edged and faceted and focused entirely upon him.

These were not the eyes of a blind witch, nor did Lance see his own death within her endless irises. Despite this he still averted his gaze swiftly. Afraid, though it made no sense, that he would somehow instead see Rachel's end.

"You're not the witch!" Lance blurted out. So many other words had all jumbled up behind his lips and yet these were the ones that had somehow made it past the cage of his teeth.

"Excuse me?" The beautiful apparition moved out of his line of sight and though he could no longer see those flawless features her tone alone was enough to portray the vexation.

Lance scrambled to his feet, spinning so fast that he almost fell again.

"Wait, are you the witch?"

Right side up this woman was even more beautiful somehow, a feat that Lance would have not believed if he'd not seen it with his own two eyes. She stood her full height, fully affronted.

"How dare you, pathetic little mortal!" The accent she spoke with grew heavier as the rage cloyed from her tongue to circle around her. This wasn't metaphorical. Energy the color of the sky at dawn crackled around her tightly. But even at this distance every hair upon his own body stood up on end. A scent akin to thunder filled the space around him.

Despite the instinctual push of his body to run run RUN away from this inhuman creature Lance stayed rooted.

"You totally are!" Lance pointed, as if that would drive this truth home. "That's-that's totally magic ain't it! Mierda!" The last word was breathless, and for a few moments after this he was simply struck speechless-for once.

Her airy hair began to raise along with the energy around them and her eyes flashed dangerously. But Lance paid that no mind, hope filled his heart so fully that he felt as if he was overflowing with it. All of the exhaustion drained from him as he took in this otherworldly vision.

She wasn't dressed in rags at all, but was resplendent in a long, figure hugging dress of varying hues of blue. White and rose accents highlighted the woman's curves, and the splashes of gold made her appear almost royal. Lance didn't know much about fashion, but the cut was almost transcendental in it's design, and the boy found it hard to look away, or to take in more than a few details at a time. As Lance studied her she visibly began to calm, a look of curiosity replacing the previous look across her features, and all Lance could really think of, now that the all encompassing fear had been lifted for these blissful moments, was HAH Marco had been so wrong! (and Lance couldn't wait to tell him!)

"You are awfully deep into the woods human." Her voice no longer held as threatening of an edge, and her coiling tresses began to slowly settle. As the alabaster ripples came to rest they revealed another feature Lance had yet to notice.

"Yeah! I mean I am I know, I uh, I was looking for the witch, I mean you of course, and I can't really believe I found you but—" Lance's hands were moving about him chaotically as he spoke, nerves spiking against his tongue in a sharp flavor as he rambled.

Her ears were long and pointed right at the end, an elegant, if somewhat severe angle. But that couldn't be right…. Witches were still human…. Weren't they?

"I. Am. Not. A. Witch." The woman huffed, crossing her arms. "Of all things—" While the first part of her statement was enunciated, punctuated, and almost leveled at Lance as a shout, this last part was a mere mumble under her breath, though Lance still caught it.

"Uh, then what are you?" The words were out of his mouth before he could really think. Once they were out he couldn't pull them back, and he cringed, knowing how blunt and tactless they had sounded. (How many times had he been warned by his mama of this very thing?)

An idea was teasing the very edges of his mind, but before it could fully form Lance was already pushing it away. It was just too ludicrous!

A look that was perhaps universal crossed her alluring face, one eyebrow raising as her eyes flashed in a way that could have been a dare. An almost smirk curved the edges of her lips up just so as she watched this human child struggle with this slow, but inevitable, realization.

It felt like the ground had suddenly fallen out from beneath him as the world around him expanded.

"You're an elf!"


	7. Chapter 7

"What!"

While Lance knew that this being before him was not quite human, this was a very human moment for the ethereal woman. She had squawked, disgruntled, taking a step back as her elegant fingers curled into two tight fists. "No."

It was apparent to the boy that she was struggling to find the right words to properly portray the effect that his proclamation had on her, mouth opening and closing, small sounds as words half formed halted before fully leaving her.

Lance was about to ask if she was okay, when her mouth snapped shut and her eyes narrowed in a decisive manner.

"You are gifted with one more attempt to guess at what I am mortal."

"Why only one! That's not fa—"

She held up her hand and he wasn't sure if her presence truly was enough to steal his voice from him or if perhaps she had cast a magical spell over him to silence.

"You've already used 2 of your bids." She stated as if this were the most obvious thing.

His gulp echoed in a suddenly empty head. "Or what?" He croaked out.

"I'm not sure yet…. But I know I can come up with something….creative for you."

Lance struggled to grasp at some sense of reality, eyes falling from her empyrean visage to land on the shrubbery surrounding him to try and ground himself.

A chilling thought floated to the surface of his mind as he sought the right answer.

What if she was a dream?

What if all of this was a dream?

Breath caught against the back of his throat and Lance shook his head to rid it…. Even if that was true, he wasn't yet ready to return to the nightmare of his reality.

So long as he kept playing along something would work out…. Right?

Pulling in a shaky breath, ready to be wrong as he delivered his shot in the dark answer, and with it, slipped into a persona that felt more natural for him, hanging onto any small aspect for normalcy as a ballast as he finally spoke.

"Girl it doesn't matter to me what you are, cuz you so fine—" Lance rearranged his features into the flirtatious smirk that Marco was famous for, which the young boy had mimicked time and time again in the bathroom mirror, trying to perfect and make it his own.

The woman's expression did not shift an inch but remained as smoothed out as satin, and as cool…. She looked almost….bored now. He ran a hand back through his hair in a way he'd seen Marco do many times, mussing it before held up both of his hands, fingers pointing at her as he tried again. "Whatever you are, must have some kinda magic nina, you are enchanting." To punctuate the end of this, and perhaps cover up the slight tremble of his voice, Lance wiggled his brows.

A number of silent seconds ticked by where all he could do was hold his breath, and his pose, mouth growing drier by the instant, tongue seeming to grow larger behind his teeth, flashing as the smile froze with nerves upon his features. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to talk again.

The woman continued to stare at him, through him, stone faced and as still as a sculpture. Lance's posture wilted a bit, his false bravado wavering and just about to fall when a sound like the tinkering of many small glass bells rang out through the forest, echoing back at them and creating a fanciful harmony that sent chills down Lance's spine.

It took him a moment to understand that she was laughing and the boy felt a tightness within his chest loosen, breath whooshing out of him in a relieved sigh. He even allowed a genuine, if tentative, smile to raise his lips.

"Oh I like you human!" She began to turn away from the mortal, shooting a dazzling smile his way. "It's been fun!"

All in one instant, in the time it took for Lance to drag in a sharp, almost painful inhalation, the boy dropped all of his previous pretense, this veneer thin facade, and any thought of hesitation or second guesses fell away.

"Wait!" He called out, thankful at least that this time his voice did not fail him. Without thinking too hard about what he was about to do Lance lunged after her. Shocked when his fingers succeeded in capturing her wrist. It wasn't the only shock he received though, as a volt of something almost like electricity jolted up his entire arm from where he was touching her… had been touching her. For even as his heart skipped in momentary triumph the uncanny creature slipped through his desperate grasp as if she were nothing more than water.

"Please wait!"

Lance wasn't sure what stopped her: the desolation that crackled in his voice, or pure curiosity. But she paused in the deep shade of a large tree. Despite the shadows that the, abundant leaves cast over her, the jeweled eyes still glittered just as bright, almost glowing, like the marks upon her cheeks, which cast a soft luminosity across the rest of her elegant features. She didn't say a single word, simply stood in an unnatural stillness as the silence spread out from her, halting the very breeze itself. Her sharp gaze bore into the human boy. It paralyzed him to the spot. Even though he felt as if he had no breath left in him, and his voice felt trapped by the sheer weight of her eyes upon him, they seemed to compel him to speak his truth.

"You might not be the witch! But you must know where she is! I have to find her!" Lance barely bit back the thick sob that rose from the heaviness in his chest up his throat like bile. Despite this his eyes felt strangely dry. Once again nothing more than her look alone urged more words from him.

"I- I need a wish granted." He choked out, heat rushing to his cheeks in a sudden flush of chagrin. It was the first time he'd said it out loud, and it sounded so dumb. So absolutely childish.

A thoughtful look crossed over the woman's feature's, which had previously been so fixed, devoid of any other emotion. The change was clear even to Lance at this distance.

"Tell me your story human child, and I shall see what it is worth." As she spoke her stare broke away from him finally and he stumbled forward as if he'd been suddenly released from a hold. His own eyes lowered as he found his footing.

The second time telling it was no easier than the first, but even through the lump in his throat Lance was able to articulate this nightmare…. To make his need clear.

But as he spoke the boy felt as if…. As if he were selling something. It was a gross, itchy sensation that crawled over his skin, and still his story tumbled forth. He wasn't sure if he could stop, but he didn't try.

When blue eyes rose to look back up at the woman he started. She'd neared him again, moving on silent feet to close the distance. So close now that their noses were almost touching. But this wasn't the only thing that caught him off guard.

Her gilded eyes were wide, and glistening with…. Tears?

Hope, Lance was beginning to realize, was such a dangerous thing. The frail, feathered curse of it, so small when he'd first hatched this unlikely plan, grew larger in his chest. Blooming wide until it felt as if there was no more room within his rib cage, an almost suffocating presence.

"C-can you help me?" Lance leaned towards her even more, the possibilities filling his mind, "You have magic too! I don't even need the witch! Maybe you could do something! I could…. I could bring Rachel out…..no that probably wouldn't work… or! Or, I could show you where I live and you could cast a spell, I guess maybe you don't do that though, you could do…. Whatever it is that you do…. What is it that you do?" He knew he was getting ahead of himself, that he should stop from rambling like this. But he was afraid now... of the quiet, and what could break it. Afraid that a single word, a solitary action, could shatter the fragile blossoms that had filled him, and the shards would stab into his heart. All of this fear was making him babble. He didn't want to give her any time to answer.

It didn't matter. A hand that was not exactly warm, but electric with energy shot out, covering his mouth and sending small shocks down through him.

"I'm so very sorry Lance—" she spoke in a low calming tone, as if to a wild animal. The type of voice that could easily tame a feral beast.

The boy only wondered for a moment, he couldn't remember if he'd ever given this elven creature his name.

"I cannot help you."

As she spoke Lance bit the inside of his cheeks. It gave him excuse enough for the sudden sting in his eyes.

Her gaze slid past his own, in such a way that reminded the boy of guilt, if she could even feel such a thing.

"Why~" His voice was muffled by her hand, but despite that it cracked at the very end.

"It is…. A hard thing for me to explain, and it would be harder for a mortal, and a child such as you to understand."

He turned his head, panting as his mouth was finally freed. When he licked his lips a sweet taste lingered over his tongue.

"You said my story might be wroth something!" His accusation was croaked out of him, and he felt that all too familiar sensation clawing up his throat. With a great effort he pushed the need to cough away, trying not to think about what it meant.

It was the first time that the woman looked doubtful, her lightly colored brows pulled together, angling downwards as she worried her bottom lip.

"It is a story with a high price…. Only two other human's outside your blood have been told."

Lance bit back his questions of how she could possibly know that and what that even meant. Why would something like that be important? He didn't want to distract her at this possibly critical junction.

"Well… how much is it worth? What can you do for me? Do you know anyone who can help me?" Lance struggled to choose the right inquiries, but so many swirled around and around in his head, dizzying and overwhelming.

The woman opened her mouth and excitement buzzed through Lance's veins, that treacherous hope rising once more in him like a tide. Pulled forth by her as if she were the moon.

But before coveted answers could drop in her beautiful tones, a nearby tree with lightly colored bark and a slim trunk, low hanging branches, curved and bending, leaves a silvered mint that shivered in the slight breeze that had returned, lent low of it's own accord, as if bowing to a great gust, only… there was no such wind around them. Before he could process exactly how this was happening the birch distinctly whispered, "Allura we can't!"

"Uh…." Lance felt at this point that he had fallen down the rabbit hole. He knew what he wanted to ask next. It wasn't that words failed him, as they'd been doing quite a lot over the last few days. Nor had his voice abandoned him. It was simply that 'did a tree just talk' was so ludicrous, too insane.

It was so easy to fall back into the belief that, after all, he was dreaming. Maybe exhaustion had finally caught up and claimed him on his run and even now he was sleeping beneath a tree... or perhaps slumber had taken him sooner than that, and Marco had carried him from the car into his room…. It was even possible that sleep had never released him from it's grasp, and these were all playing out behind his eyelids back in Hunk's room.

Just like the time before, when this possibility rose in his thoughts, Lance leaned into it readily. He preferred this dream, no matter how crazy it got, to his reality.

"Oh come now Romelle!"

"We are not supposed to even talk to humans!" Yeah the tree was definitely talking, in almost the exact same unworldly accent. And this elven woman was talking back!

"I know but this one is so very interesting. And has such an awfully sad story! Are you not moved by his plight? Is it not the single most sympathetic origin?" Lance couldn't quite tell if he was being made fun of. But he bristled regardless. Unsure of how in the world he would defend himself against a magical woman and a talking tree, and yet opening his mouth anyway, ready to interrupt the charade of charity…. That is until the next words were uttered. The one named Allura (and really, what an unequivocally fitting name) brought up her hand to cover her lips as she whispered. Making it seem as if it were a secret, though he still picked up what she said; "And can you not sense his latency? There is something different about this human child…" After a moment she sighed when there was not an immediate response from the foliage, straightening up. "You can desist in your attempt to obscure yourself. It has obviously failed. Mortals are not that dumb" This was said in a normal tone, though it was stained ever so slightly with irritation.

"Are you sure?" The expression used by the tree was disbelieving but regardless the wispy limbs began to glow a soft golden hue, like wheat swaying in a lazy summer's day zephyr. This glimmer split and refracted, the silhouette of the tree in the midst of this began to shift. Becoming shorter, the curves growing more unified and defined to a form familiar. As the light faded from the area and the hair on the boy's arms and neck began to settle he blinked a few times, unsure if he believed what was before his eyes.

Another aerial beauty stood where the tree had been. Her hair the gentle almond blond of a spring daffodil. Her eyes were not as bright as Allura's, but they were just as celestial; housing a strange color somewhere between pink and purple and yet not a human hue. Her ensemble was stranger than the other's as well. Not quite as elegant, but just as foreign. The swaths of pink and teal fabrics hung more loosely from her slim frame. The air about her was not quite so royal. Her feet settled fully onto the earthen ground, barely disturbing the fallen leaves of seasons past. In fact, Lance noticed for the first time that neither of them made an impression upon the detritus of the forest floor. Unlike Allura, even as the magic of this transformation fully released in the atmosphere, her skin still kept a faint radiance, as if a small star resided within her, just beneath her flesh.

The entire process had only taken the amount of time for his heart to beat thrice, and yet seemed to have stopped entirely.

None of Marco's pick-up lines had prepared him for this, how to talk to a girl who just turned at will from a tree. Before Lance could react though Allura grabbed this new magical lady that had joined them, turning her to face Lance.

"Just look at him Romelle!" She insisted, and Lance balked, unsure of what to do with himself.

"He's got dirt on his face." Obviously this new…. Whatever it was they were, was not impressed. With a wrench Romelle freed herself from Allura's grasp and neared Lance, leaning over to study him, a look of perpetual disdain plastered across her otherwise pretty features. She lifted his arm and let it drop, her touch was cold, and the energy that lingered behind her fingers was like the brush of a leaf against Lance's skin. She continued to inspect him, circling and prodding. At the end of it she stopped before him, arms crossed. If the look upon her face was anything to go by, Romelle remained unimpressed, and a might suspicious.

"I don't know Allura, I do not see what you see."

"Oh you must though! Here—right here in his eyes—"

"Hey!" Allura's grip was shockingly strong as she gripped his chin, raising it until the sunlight hit his retina.

"Hmmm…." It still did not sound as if the other was convinced. But she said nothing more.

"Can you not see that inherent talent? It's as clear as day! I'm sure he'd have a natural gift towards enchantment.

"Most human's do, they are just too blind, or stupid, to see it."

The two of them continued to talk about him as if he was not there. For a small bit of this Lance was too shocked to feel any which way about it.

But as his awe wore off, irritation replaced it.

"—At the most he might have a spark, but at he worst he could be a spy. Did you ever think of that Allura?"

"Hey-I'm not a spy." He sputtered, not even thinking before he interjected in his own defense. Romelle leaned in closer to him with such speed that the boy stumbled backwards, almost falling.

"That's exactly what a spy would say!"

Squaring his shoulders, the irritation giving way to annoyance, a much easier emotion to handle than any of the other ones that had ravaged through him recently. He held onto it like a shield.

"I don't know what you're on about! I just want to save my sister!"

"Oh really?" She was still up in his face. "What's your sister's name then? How old are you even? How long have you lived here? Where are you from?"

All of these questions were fired at him rapidly, with no space given in between them for any answers. Lance's head spun but still he interjected her flow.

"Rachel, thirteen, since I was a toddler or something, for as long as I can remember at least, we moved when I was real little, and Cuba."

"A likely story! Tell me—"

Allura stepped between the two of them.

"Leave the boy be Romelle. Do you really believe that I would not see through any deceptions?"

Lance was breathing heavily as he watched the two of them, the silence stretching out. Tears stung at his eyes and without realizing it he'd raised his fists.

Romelle's carnation gaze flicked back and forth between the two of them, before softening, a thoughtful look crossing over her features.

"Do you think that Shiro could help him? Or even would?"

A new name…. was another of these fae-like beings going to appear, transform from a rock or a bush. Lance was distracted from looking around by the dazzling smile that lit up Allura's features.

"It doesn't hurt to ask!" She giggled, turning to look fully at this mortal boy once more. "come human~ catch us if you can!"

Before he could fully work through what had been said, the two elven women had taken flight, almost literally. Their feet barely touched the forest floor as they danced gracefully away from him, twirling between the dense trees.

An excited sort of panic that Lance couldn't quite pin down jolted through him like a current of lightning. He couldn't be left behind. Not if they were truly offering his one chance to save Rachel!

He took off after them. Sneakers sliding against the sediment of decaying leaves. The continued sound of their laughter led him more than their tricky shimmering forms and he wondered what would happen when he caught them. He did his best to keep up with them- but the two of them always managed to stay just barely out of his reach.


	8. Chapter 8

Lance wasn't sure how long they'd been running, but to his aching lungs and straining muscles it felt like much too long. He knew that he'd slowed down considerably, and yet they were always just right at the edges of his perception. A flash from their brightly colored garments. A hint of a sweet, flowery aroma, so separate from the dusky scent of the deep woods. A distant trill of laughter, at times hard to separate from the playful chirping of the many birds. All of which pulled him inevitably in one direction.

And perhaps it had taken his oxygen deprived brain much to long to realize this wasn't about catching them at all; to ask the question; wondering where they were leading him.

Regardless hope drove him onward.

A laugh sounded to his far left. But as he pivoted his legs finally gave out. His knees buckled and pain shot up from his ankle. If not for the wall that seemed to rise up out of the forest itself, Lance might have fallen. Thankfully his face, followed in quick succession by his shoulder, broke his dive.

Varying degrees of pain flashed through his system from too many sources. The boy blinked back his tears, he didn't have time for them. Already he could no longer hear the tell-tale laughter of the two otherworldly women.

Not giving himself even a moment to recover he stumbled onward, bracing his hand against this wall for support. If it wasn't there he wasn't sure if his ankle would support his weight at all. Even with it's reinforcement the boy still limped along, cringing with each—

-wait—a wall?

Where did that come from?

Lance paused and finally looked around. It made sense, now that he was actually looking at it. The material completely camouflaged it within the woods. It was an old-fashioned log cabin. The boy struggled to step back, and his mouth fell agape as he was finally able to take in the full scope of this picturesque lodge before him. Even though it felt as if the simple home had materialized right from out of the forest he knew that it hadn't (right?) that someone had to have built it (right!) No matter what he told himself it was hard to believe, for it could have, it might as well have.

Maybe he was simply losing his mind.

It wouldn't be the first time this thought had occurred to him after all.

Regardless this didn't look like a witch's abode to Lance. the boy had imagined the it would be made of wood yes, but not like this. In his mind it had been shingles of all different types and shades, laid over each other in a half hazard manner that invited chaos. Or perhaps rough stones, stacked in a way that looked as if they didn't quite fit together. With tall angled windows and a steep gabled roof.

There was nothing ornate about this shanty though. Nothing overtly magical. In fact it was kinda…. Boring in Lance's opinion. It was a simple, practically barren, single story abode, the timber fitted together like the old toy Lincoln logs he used to play with.

Neither of the fae women were in sight and he couldn't hear them either. Though he kept both his ears strained and his eyes peeled as he continued to hobble around the corner of this cabin in the woods.

With each new step however more pain lanced up his legs, igniting nerve endings like blades of fire and ice.

A curse word the likes of which would have even his older siblings snickering, and earn him a slap upside the head with la chancla, ripped past his gritted teeth.

Before his tired mind could scramble after a plan for what he should possibly do next a resounding crack resounded all around him, shaking him to the bone and echoing off through the trees. Lance startled, almost falling over as he accidentally put more weight down upon his injured foot. The yelp he couldn't quite hold back was covered by another reverberant report disturbing a number of small colorful birds from the nearby trees, all taking flight in a sudden burst, voices shrill with irritation.

More of these splintering sounds shot through the air in an almost rhythmic manner, though not quite as loud, nor as startling as the first.

As soon as Lance's heart settled back down into a normal cadence he began to follow the noise, not even sure why his blood had quickened in apprehension. There wasn't anything to be afraid of, he tried to convince himself. He leaned even more heavily upon the outer wall of the cabin, the grain of the wood rough against his palm. A disquiet that teased the very edge of fear filled him despite the constant stream of reasoning that flowed through his mind, and it tainted every small reaction he had; a jump as the wind rustled the leaves of the foliage around him, a sharp inhalation of breath as movement dashed in his peripheral.

It didn't quite seem possible, but as he neared the corner this sound got louder, his ears almost aching with it. As he reached it the boy took a rest. Leaning his back against the wall and trying to steady his labored breathing. Working up his courage to—

He pivoted on his uninjured leg, keeping himself braced against the logs.

The next exhalation he released was a breathless laugh and Lance fell back in relief. It was just some old dude chopping wood, stark white hair shimmering in the sun as sweat dampened the man's shirt, outlining the muscles of his broad back as they tightened. The tension left the boy's body and he almost collapsed right then and there. He actually felt a bit deflated by this anticlimactic moment.

Though the juxtaposition between this and what he'd just witnessed sent his mind reeling. This was all just so …. Average. Almost too much so within its normalcy. The comparison, after such an mystical experience, was an overwhelming one. Suddenly filled with the urge to cry he brought his hands up to his face, blocking out the light for a few blissful moments. It had to have happened, he told himself over and over. It had felt so authentic, and even now the memories were so vivid. It had to be real. If not than he was just a boy, lost in the woods.

As he took his hands away from his eyes he wrung them about each other to still the slight tremor.

He must have made some sort of sound though. The older man halted his downward swing midway, his brawny body spinning with the grace of a dancer and released the ax with the same, seamless motion. With the built up momentum of the arch added to this throw the hatchet easily spiraled right past Lance's head, so close the boy could feel the wind off it.

Lance wasn't quite sure when he stopped breathing. The dull thunk of the blade sinking into wood right next to him, followed by a deep silence , where not even the birds or other wild creatures of the forest dared too interrupt, stretched on for an untold amount of time.

It was the first time the boy had gotten a good look at this mysterious woodsman and he was taken aback by what he saw, so much so that he forgot momentarily about his near death experience, about his injured leg, about how he wasn't breathing, and a gasp pulled in sweet oxygen. Almost everything else lay in the back of his mind, not quite remembered either.

The first thing that jumped out at him was that this guy only had one arm. The second was how young the other really seemed. Lance had assumed he was ancient due to the snow white hair atop his head but, there was no way this guy was too much older than Luis if that! The only aspect that marred his features was a scar that ran across his nose, the skin there lighter than the rest. A vague memory teased at the very edges of Lance's tired thoughts.

The man's gray eyes were blown wide, shifting back and forth rapidly and even from where he was standing Lance could see the wild glint within them. He wondered if the guy was even seeing him. Sweat lent a sheen to his paled flesh, which made sense with how many halved pieces of wood lay scattered about his feet.

When that dark gaze did finally focus on the youth surprise, confusion and horror flashed in swift succession over his features. Curiosity had Lance leaning forward.

"I could have hit you…" The man stated cautiously, taking steady steps towards the boy. "Are you okay? What are you even doing out here kid? You shouldn't be."

He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, not sure what he should even say. There was no way a full grown adult would believe him.

"I think I'm lost." The words were so small as his voice croaked out of him. It wasn't until this moment that he realized just how thirsty he was.

The man sighed, his one arm raising as he scratched the back of his head, brows furrowing in a thoughtful manner. Lance tried not to look at the sleeve of the T-shirt that was tied up by the man's shoulder. Again a nebulous knowing tickled at his mind.

"Well come on in and let's call your parents—" He began to turn away from Lance and without thinking he'd pushed off from the wall.

"Wai—"A jolt of pain splintered up his leg and before he could rethink his decision to move the boy was falling.

A large hand caught his upper arm roughly, keeping him upright.

The boy heard another sigh before the exhalation ruffled his hair. "And you're hurt… great."

"Yeah sorry- guess I forgot about the sprained ankle after the lumberjack hucked an ax at my head." Despite his best efforts he couldn't stop the sarcasm from sneaking into his tone.

"Uh yeah, fair point. Did I mention I was sorry?" Lance didn't answer, but bit down against his bottom lip as more agonizing hurt pulsed with his heartbeat through his system as they made their way. There was silence for a short time, save for the younger one's labored breathing and a few huffs when the man helped to lift him over the threshold. "My name is Shiro, what's yours?"

It wasn't until this moment that the dubious sense of recognition was jogged and formed into an actual memory. Tumblers fell into place within Lance's mind. It…. It must be that Shiro. That one recluse…. The town's very own Hermit! Mama had once said… ooh what was it… that he'd …. He'd earned his solitude, or something like that…

The war veteran Takashi Shirogane. Lance had once seen him years ago. It had been in a …. Parade… as he concentrated on the recollection more of that day came flooding back, first as simply snapshots in time, but steadily they became clearer.

Lance sat atop his papa's shoulders, eyes wide and laughter just a breath away as he took in the marching band. Behind which a caravan of old convertibles crept. There were people dressed all fancy waving at the crowd, their smiles so big that he bet his dad he could totally count their teeth, even from way back here.

Only one of the people wasn't smiling. He looked super cool and serious in his military uniform and Lance was sure he was extra important, with all those shiny metals glinting from his chest as the sun shone down.

Even then some of his hair was white.

"Hey hey—" He bounced to get Papa's attention, pointing. "Who's that guy?"

"Huh? Oh he's a hero mijo—"

"Woah~" The single syllable was drawn out in reverence and awe. "How did he do that? Who did he save?"

Lance could feel his father's deep chuckle. "He saved a lot of people."

"I want to be a hero some day papa!"

Lance was deposited onto the couch and he looked up, somewhat dazed.

"Uh, your name kid?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Lance." He muttered, hissing as he tried to shift.

The inside of the house smelled so good, of dried spices and herbs, all the natural scents that could be found in the forest without all those extra odors of animal decay made worse by the humidity.

Sunshine slanted through the windows, alighting on the multitude of bundled plants hanging down from the low ceiling, swinging next to the animals hides and bones. An old bookcase, looking as if it had simply been carved out from the old trunk of a tree, leaned lopsided against the wall right across form him. Upon the shelves sat a number of old, thick, imposing tomes.

The inside looked much more like a witch's house. The thought flitted across Lance's mind jokingly

"Let's take a look at that leg Lance. Try not to move—" The words that Shiro didn't say were obvious enough to the boy…. He was waiting for some sort of explanation.

But he wasn't even sure where to start. He was already so sick of having to explain everything. He wrapped his arms around himself. "I don't know what to do—"

The man ran a hand back through his hair. "Well, I won't be able to help too much unless I know the entire situation. So why don't you tell me, and start from the beginning."

Resigned to his fate to yet again bare himself Lance began a halting, hesitant explanation, wondering what he should leave out…. Like probably the thing about the magical girls who led him here…. But then just as he finalized this decision his stupid mouth was already moving.

"-and I think… I think all of this is really getting to me bad. Like I just- I'm going crazy." Maldita se! He hadn't meant to say that. He held his breath, scrambling over what he could possibly say next to cover his mistake up, hoping that Shiro ignored it.

But the man knelt next to the couch, a look of true empathy upon his features.

"It's totally normal to feel this way Lance. And while it's not uh- great that you ran away, it does make sense."

A tightness in his chest that the boy had been ignoring loosened ever so slightly at the other's words and he looked up with an almost hopeful gleam in his ocean eyes.

"Really?" It wasn't that Lance had been expecting anything really. But to get this sort of validation was, unexpected, but oh so very welcome.

But then reality sunk in again and the boy averted his gaze, worrying his bottom lip.

"That's not quite what I mean…"

Shiro just looked at him, remaining quiet and patient. And though it went against his better judgement, there was a certain air about the older man, as if he was a safe space, like he could be trusted, even if Lance was going insane. "I…I had a breakdown earlier and I think…. I'm not sure I think I was dreaming or something. But like, I was awake."

"So you…. Think you were hallucinating?" Shiro asked, and was it just Lance, or did the man suddenly seem… wary? But of course he was, he had to be when dealing with a crazy person right?

"Yeah I guess…" He'd already started, so there was no turning back. Tentatively Lance picked the threads of his story back up, the truth spilling forth. More than he meant to poured out of him in a deluge. As he spoke he barely noticed how the expression on Shiro's face changed. How the man began to shake his head.

"And that's when I ran into your cabin, literally!" As his account wound to a close Lance finally brought his gaze back up to meet Shiro's. And he blanched with what he saw.

It was as if a storm cloud had passed over the man's features and Lance felt an apology rising in his throat like a bubble, bursting from him before he could stop it.

"I'm sorry! I know it sounds crazy-"

"Huh? What? No it's…. it's not you Lance." Shiro released a laugh that was not quite … right. It was the sort of ominous chuckle that the boy recognized from Luis. His older brother would make this joyless sound when Sylvio or Nadia really really messed up. Did that mean that Lance had done something wrong?

"Damn those playful faeries."

Lance blinked, confusion drowning out the previous emotions. Maybe he'd heard Shiro wrong? Or perhaps he'd heard the older man perfectly. The boy wracked his mind for anymore details about Shiro… what if he was actually the crazy one? Lance had heard about the soldier's sickness. How the war could change a person, twist them up sometimes.

A different type of dread filled Lance now, a new kind. One he was not familiar with.

Before the boy could even think of an escape route Shiro stood and strode over to the door. The boy tried to hide his flinch, but another one rolled over the first as he pushed back into the couch. Shiro's voice boomed out into the forest.

"Allura! I know this is your work. Coran!" The man paused, his one hand tight against the frame. "Come on I know you can hear me!"

As his voice finished echoing between the trees a palpable quiet fell. Lance began to inch away along the couch. Not one for strategy he knew his chances were low of being able to outrun a full grown adult. Let alone on a busted up ankle.

But maybe with a big enough distraction…. Or a believable excuse. After all he'd convinced his mama he'd had a stomach ache for 2 weeks straight in the third grade!

"Thank you so much for listening, like really, mucho mucho gracias. I'm pretty sure I can find my own way ho—"

There was no warning. Just a slight displacement of the air within the room and all the hairs on Lance's body rose before the ethereal creature of beauty, Allura, popped into existence right in front of Lance. So close that she was practically on top of him.


	9. Chapter 9

"Where were you?" Shiro's irritation was clear for anyone to see. From how his muscular arm was cocked, hand resting upon his hip, to his raised brow, to the clipped tone that fell like a blow across the room.

And yet Allura didn't seem to take notice at all as she hummed, leaning over Lance's outstretched leg. The boy sat stiffly, watching her with an accusing gaze.

"Well Allura?"

Man Shiro had that dad voice down.

"Oh you poor thing!" Allura exclaimed, "you hurt yourself chasing us." With a tut and a click of her tongue the elven woman turned towards Shiro, almost leisurely. "I do hope you plan on taking care of the unfortunate soul. And as for the rest of the others, you've got them veritably shaking in their leaves."

"Incorrect." Another voice joined in then, one the boy did not recognize. His head snapped around, trying to spot this speaker, wary of how he might appear.

It didn't matter that Lance was attempting to expect the unexpected. When the red haired male, with an impressive flaming mustache, ears just as long and pointed as Allura's and Romelle's, markings a soft blue upon his cheeks and glowing ever so slightly, materialized out of the very wood of the nearest wall, he still jumped back, heart skipping up into his throat with a quickened pulse. The other two didn't even flinch.

A moan of pain that pressed past his lips sent Shiro into motion once more though before he could say anything, which would have probably been a lecture, if Lance's instincts were anything to go off of.

Romelle shockingly walked right through the still open front door.

"Yeah that's not true!"

"What were the two of you thinking, leading him here?" It didn't seem as if Shiro would be so easily waylaid.

"We just wanted to help him out is all!" The blonde threw her arms wide, punctuating her point.

"Yes! Precisely that! Isn't his story so heart wrenching." Allura laced her fingers together as if in prayer, and turned imploring eyes on the white haired male. The third faery (it felt so weird calling the three of them something so…so…. ridiculously childish) simply watched on, his hands folded behind his back, body unmoving as his eyes flicked back and forth as each one spoke.

"And we would have helped him, but you know how our powers work!" With this all three uncannily bright eyes landed on Shiro, their looks full of a hidden meaning that Lance couldn't quite grasp at.

"Uh hey, I'm still here—" the boy interjected crossing his arms in a pout.

Perhaps Shiro was just made of sighs, he thought meanly, glaring at a spot on the floor, for the older man released yet another.

"Coran, Allura, Romelle- please join me in the kitchen- I need some help."

The boy resisted the urge to roll his eyes as they all ducked into the kitchen, it wasn't like his parents didn't do this exact same thing!

And just like with his parents Lance scooted over on the couch as far as he could go and strained his ears. The conversation undulated, raising into a clarity that the boy could make out before dropping off into obscurity.

"-And you know that… pass me the ginger and valerian root…" that was Shiro's deep tones.

"Oh- and don't forget the turmeric-" That new guy, Coran was his name.

"Don't blame me! It was…hmmm perhaps some capsaicin ointment as well?"

"- hand over that white willow tincture—"

"Don't be such a stick in the mud Shiro!"

It all became too jumbled for Lance to make any sense of it, and as Shiro returned, carrying a small container carefully in his hand, no faeries upon his heels, he jostled to look at ease.

"I've got the kettle on and I'm going to fix up your ankle." He stated softly. He knelt and began to apply an ointment that almost burned as it sank into Lance's skin. Humming in a low tone as he worked. Soon enough there was no pain at all.

"What—" The boy muttered to himself as he leaned over, looking at his ankle.

A high-pitched whistling sounded from the kitchen and Shiro stood up, "would you like any honey or sugar?" He called over his shoulder. But Lance didn't quite hear him. The boy tentatively began to prod at the flesh, no longer was it swollen and angry red. There was no twinge of an injury at all, even an old one.

By the time Shiro had returned, one steaming cup in his hand, Lance had braved placing weight on the limb, testing it with more and more surety, until he was properly convinced.

"Here you go bud—"

"You're the witch!" Lance's finger snapped up so fast that he almost knocked the mug from Shiro's hand. "Wait…. but you're a dude!"

Lance didn't hear the sigh per se, as excitement grasped at him, and a burst of energy flashed in his system, unable to abate, and his mouth was moving a mile a minute. All of his hope returning in a flood of words, but he still saw it, how the man's broad shoulders slumped, just ever so slightly. He placed the tea on an end table as the boy continued to gesture wildly, a melee of his longing was driven from his mouth in a feverish faith.

"You really can help me! I can't believe those crazy magic ladies were right! You can save my sister! I don't know how, but you can cure her or something! Or like… just take the sickness away from her right? Like with a spell—"

Shiro's brows pulled together, tilting downwards back to his stark white hair line.

"Slow dow—Lance—please Lance slow down!" He waited for the boy to do so, or at least to quiet somewhat. His knuckles were white as they clenched against his lap, legs bouncing. A lump formed in his throat, bubbling up and consisting of all the things left unsaid.

"First off I'm not a witch—"

"But—"

Shiro held up his hand and Lance clamped his mouth shut. The man was shaking his head. "No I'm just a…. a healer now. A cunningman." Pain flashed across his face, but the boy ignored it, jumping on that one word without mercy.

"Then heal her! I don't care what you call yourself just rescue her!"

"Lance… I can't just—" Though they had only just met half an hour previous Shiro looked heartbroken and aged as he struggled to find adequate articulations.

Lance didn't want any of them.

"But…but my ankle! The faeries… how-why-?" His frustrations kept his tongue tied, he swallowed hard past the lump in his throat, making an obvious attempt to gather himself before he started once more. "Your friends said you could help. They want you to. Maybe together you could—"

Shiro was still shaking his head, his own growing grievance apparent. "I'm so sorry. That's just- not how any of this works—" The boy could tell that the older man needed him to understand. Needed Lance to forgive him. It was a sense of something being held back from him, as if Shiro wanted too, but couldn't fully explain. He wouldn't have been willing to listen either way though. A 'no', regardless of the reasons, would still spell Rachel's death. Lance continued despite this, using his one wish as a weapon. Turning it into claws and teeth that beat back and dug into Shiro.

"There just has to be a way."

"It's true that these fae are… bound to me—"

"Then they hafta listen to what you say right? You could order them, make them…. You wouldn't even hafta do anything!"

"I don't… we don't use each other. I saved them—"

"But you won't save my sister!" Lance jumped up, his fists clenched till they grew cold with his rage.

"Lance please, I need you to calm down—"

The boy couldn't believe this. How in the world was he supposed to calm down? But even as he opened his mouth, instead of what he believed to be a scathing tirade (but was probably simply a petulant fit) a rough hacking cough burst forth.

Lance brought his arm up to his mouth, covering it as he doubled over. Shiro's shadow fell over him and he waved him off.

"I have some medicinals that could help you Lance let me—"

"I'm—fine—" The boy struggled to push out the words coherently between each harsh bark. "It's not—me—" He very rarely actually coughed, and he normally had some sort of warning when Rachel had a fit like this…. It must have been a bad one. Dread clenched at his heart.

"What do you mean?" Shiro asked, obviously not used to having nothing to do.

It passed as quickly as it had come and Lance fell back against the cushions, drained.

"It… it's my sister's… I … I, uh, feel her pain? Or something. It's hard to explain—" Lance didn't mention that he'd never really tried too, outside of his sister. It felt surreal talking about it out loud. But out of everything else that had happened thus far it was rather mundane in comparison.

When Shiro didn't reply right away Lance looked up at him. The man looked thoughtful, and torn. "You feel… what exactly?"

Was this Lance's chance? He chose his next words carefully. "I feel her pain and… her emotions. She's… so scared right now Shiro."

"I cannot go against the natural order of things Lance… but I can do some things. I can ease her pain. To soothe her throat. Like, eucalyptus oil as a chest rub, or willow bark tincture for the pain. Thyme and clove tea could—"

"So you're telling me that 'what you can do' is basically jack all! All you're saying is the exact same mierda that every doctor has done and just…just… throwing medications at her!"

"These herbal remedies don't have the same dangerous side effects and with working alongside—"

"You've gotta be able to do more! You just have too!" His body tensed, ready to jump up again, as if that could help get his point across.

"This is what I'm able to offer you Lance, this is the only way I can help. Given enough time I may be able to—"

"SHE DOESN'T HAVE TIME!"

Lance was standing once more, and heading straight for the door. His ankle didn't even give a small twinge of the memory of pain. A fact that only caused his heart to ache more, for he knew the healing power that Shiro had now.

Before he could get too far the man caught his arm.

"Please, I know you're in pain, that you both are, and that you had hoped for more from me. But I promise these things will help. Here—" He gently pushed Lance to sit once more. "I'll be right back, I'll send you home with a few things…" he was off again to the kitchen, and this time Lance heard nothing more than the busied clatter of things being pulled from the shelves.

Leaning forward, head falling down into his hands, Lance allowed the darkness his shattered hope had left behind to fill him for a moment, succumbing to it… wallowing in it.

What was he supposed to do now. The boy lifted his gaze, dragging his fingers down his face, eyes itching from their dryness. He really must be well and truly cried out.

Before the boy could fall fully into his pit of despair his eyes caught upon the bookshelves across from him… he bet one of those old looking grimoires could give him a better answer… Wait…

That was it!

Lance's gaze flicked to the archway into the kitchen, and back to the shelf, shifting between the two as his nerves jumped and jolted at the decision he'd just made. Now to simply work himself up to the action… but he had to do so quickly, before Shiro returned, or his guilt over rode his choice. He couldn't stand to be thrust into hopelessness again. Lance could not, would not face his sister empty handed, not after everything else he'd already done, running away from her like he had.

Lance hesitated for only a moment more. With a decisive lunge up from the couch he launched himself at the bookcase, ripping the first tome his fingers grazed from the shelf, knocking a few of them to the ground in the process. The sound deafening to the boy who jumped like a rabbit and took off out the door, his name ringing in his ears as Shiro called after him.

All Lance had been doing for the last two days was running.

When would he be able to stop?


	10. Chapter 10

With each pounding footfall, each haggard inhale, each painful beat of his heart, another incriminating, self deprecating thought ballooned in his head. In between them his anxieties rose like air too hot to breathe; was Shiro in pursuit? What about the faeries? Was he now being hunted? What would they do to him if he was caught? Lance could feel the crawling sensation of many eyes upon him and he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, to double check that he was truly alone once more in the deep dark woods. He didn't want to risk the truth, or to slow himself down.

Just in case though the boy took random twists and turns, growing more and more lost with each one. He wasn't thinking about that though, only that he had to get away. As if he could outrun the sudden doubts that filled him. What if this book didn't have anything useful in it? Had he grabbed the wrong one?

Stumbling he coming back to himself, surprisingly, in the clearing between his home and the forest. It took a moment for his exhausted brain to process how in the world he had managed that, before he swiftly dove down beneath the tall grass, hoping he hadn't already been spotted.

It wasn't the best idea to hold his breath right after running so hard for so long and a wave of dizziness washed over him. He risked gasping in a few ragged breaths, clutching the book tightly to his chest. When he neither heard his name nor was hauled up by his father or mother Lance finally peeled the ancient tome from his torso.

It looked so very old, the leather backing warped and cracking. The spine crooked. If there had ever been lettering on the front, a title or an author given, it had long since faded and flaked away. Large as it was old, many age stained pages between the bindings.

Okay so… so maybe if he had grabbed the wrong one… maybe he could hock it online for a decent amount right? It felt expensive, so heavy in his arms. Maybe he could get enough to buy a better damn doctor for Rachel to see…

Or perhaps he could just, trade it back to Shiro for some actual help.

Either way, he wouldn't know if the book was bunk or not until he cracked it open. And here was as good a place as any for a not so leisurely read, hidden by the tall grass, late afternoon sun still warm upon his back.

The cover quite literally creaked as he lifted it, propping it in his lap.

There were not many times that Lance could focus easily on a book. And one like this would easily have him distracted with the texture of it, the scent, the handwriting itself, for each of the pages was covered in small scribbled notes.

But he had a goal and so began to scan the pages with a feverish intent.

At first the boy though that perhaps the days activities had finally caught up, compounded upon his over all physical and emotional exhaustion, for it was almost as if the words were blurring before his eyes. It was taking longer for him to translate each one. Nothing seemed to be in order, and the first couple pages looked like nothing more than recipes of some sort, like what he could find in his abuela's cookbook, though they were all medicinal. There was no way medicines could be this easy to make…was there?

Except as Lance took a closer look, he realized that some of the directions were a bit… odd. Starting this tonic at the dark of the moon, and this tincture over here had to steep for an entire cycle… whatever that was. That oil was to be blessed by…. The sun in… mars? And they only grew weirder after that. Some didn't even specify a medicine. Words Lance didn't recognize and couldn't quite translate began to pop up.

And was that a love spell?

He shook his head. He wasn't supposed to allow himself these sort of distractions dang it!

Lance's heart was already sinking. If this was really all that was in this book than it was well and truly useless to him after all. He flipped through the pages more fervently, rubbing at his eyes when the letters on the parchment began to swirl together…

But as he focused his gaze once more the characters continued to shift, his eyes began to ache with the strain, until entirely new words were formed.

The next page that Lance turned too was filled with detailed sketches of leaves and petals instead of only words. Some had labels next to them, lines that pointed out which part of a plant was usable for some such remedy. He was able to move more swiftly through these, trying not to linger on the beautiful drawings. But eventually even those began to change and shift. The differences almost unnoticeable at first. But soon enough he began to see human like features amongst the flora. Until he came upon one that looked almost like… Allura! Words like faerie, spirit, and demon were all used interchangeably, and others he didn't quite recognize but sounded out none the less… seelie and unseelie.

Lance pulled his gaze away from the graphic visage, but with each turn there were yet more creatures, humanoid beasts with claws and wings and horns.

The boy couldn't help but gulp. At least he'd run into a pretty one.

Closing the book he dug the heel of his palms into his lids until stars burst on the back of them. He took a deep breath.

He didn't know why he would be surprised after everything else he'd already seen that day, but he felt like he could cry tears of relief now. This truly was a magical text! But frustration still coiled like poison within him. It was already such a long book… and he was a slow reader to begin with… how was Lance going to read through it all if every time he looked new information was popping up? Yeah it was cool but completely unhelpful at the moment. He needed to refocus, hanging a few key words bright in his mind. He wouldn't concentrate on any one page alone.

"I don't need any of this." He muttered, the sound closer to a sob than he would like to admit.

In his hands the book warmed and a small jolt of energy, similar to when he'd been touched by the fae, and by Shiro, danced across his fingertips.

He opened the book once more, curious and wary. The letters were blurring together in an inky whirlwind, reforming faster than before. He almost grew dizzy with it, but a phrase caught his eye.

"-Wait, wait!"

As if the grimoire were listening to him the characters slowed and stopped, the movement lessened to a mere vibration. It took a moment for his own eyes to stop swimming and when he was able to center again Lance almost wasn't able to find what he thought he'd found…

But there it was, a mere note in the margins. It wasn't even a full paragraph long.

'a horned one will grant your wish with but a trivial exchange, a simple price.'

Lance's heart skipped in excitement. This was exactly the type of thing he was looking for! He wanted to read faster, but at the same time he didn't want to miss any important detail.

'For thus but three items are needed, and but three simple actions taken. The first, by far the easiest, an item of great personal value. Take this and bury it at a crossing of roads. The second a stang—'

Lance paused for just a second, what the heck was a stang?

'—of blessed rowan wood, placed above the item laid to rest. And finally a single flambeau, the color of a wish fulfilled, lit.'

That was it? That couldn't be it. He read it over a few more times, sure that he'd misunderstood something, before checking the back of the page, just in case there was more. Sure Lance didn't quite understand what a few of those words meant, but he could figure it out. He would figure it out. He had too.

Decisively Lance slammed the book shut. The start of a plan formed in his mind. The first true smile in days graced his features. First thing first thought.

It was time to get Tiburoncito.


	11. Chapter 11

Lance wavered just outside of his house, peaking over the fence, his eyes scanning the windows as he tried to determine if anyone was. His imagination was already running wild with what every member of his family would do to him individually if he was caught.

For starters the boy could feel the hurt, the betrayal that had curdled into rage within Rachel's heart. So she was definitely going to punch him square in his adorable face next time she saw him. No doubt about that. It wouldn't be the first time and Lance cringed at the memory. He tried not to think about how it might just be her last time doing so.

Then there was Veronica, who'd probably throttle him worse than Rachel, only due to her age and size difference. Marco would be more passive, more devious. Stealing Lance's dessert for a weak at least. Lance probably wouldn't be allowed to see his niece of nephew for a good long while. The boy wondered what Luis had told the kids and his chest suddenly ached with the worry that they might be feeling right now for him.

But all of that paled in comparison to what his parents were going to do to him… especially mama. At the very least he'd be grounded. That was the only for sure thing he could hold onto.

But if he was stopped now he'd never get to save Rachel. So the faster he did this the better it'd be… for everyone. Everything could go back to normal, as if none of this had ever happened. As if this all really had been one prolonged nightmare.

So Lance found himself here, inching cautiously up the driveway and circling the house from safe, hidden vantage points. He eyed the deceptively empty abode, gaze flicking to the road where no cars were in sight. For how long Lance couldn't be sure though and a pang of regret stuttering in his heart. They must still be out looking for him. Maybe thinking him lost and alone, cold and hungry.

He wondered if anyone had been left behind to wait for him, just in case he came back.

He kept a keen eye out, looking for any wayward sigh, a shadow across the window, movement of the curtains. When nothing came Lance released the breath he'd been holding. With body still tensed and ready to run should he need too the boy cautiously approached the back door, flinching with each small sound, mostly made by himself. Like the crunch of gravel beneath his shoes.

He creaked the screen open just far enough to slip through, relieved that the knob was unlocked. Up on his tiptoes he made his way over the tiled floor of the kitchen, stomach grumbling as he caught a whiff of the delectable left overs. He pried his focus away from that though, instead making his way over to the counter, cringing as the junk drawer rattled when he worked it open. He pushed aside the spools of thread, number of spare keys that he wasn't even sure opened what all, and tools that had lost the rest of their sets, finally finding, towards the back, a handful of loose, half burned birthday candles, their colors still vibrant amongst the muted hues found within.

When no one came dashing into the kitchen from the stupid amount of noise searching through the drawer had caused Lance snatched the cordless phone up, fingers dancing a well known path across the buttons. His thumb hovered over 'end call' as it rang, and without meaning to he brought up his free hand, gnawing on his nails.

"Helloooo?" A voice that was definitely not Hunk's (perhaps it was his youngest sibling?) sang across the line and the boy swiftly hung up, heart pounding hard and loud. He knew he wasn't actually caught. But try explaining that to his telltale pulse, still quickened in his veins.

It took him a few moments to gather enough gumption to try again. This time calling Pidge's house.

"Please answer please answer." He whispered like a mantra, like a desperate prayer.

The boy almost jumped up and whooped, and just barely stopped himself from doing so, as his friend's light voice mumbled incoherently for a moment before an annoyed "what" could be made out, followed by; "Lance that better be you or so help me—"

"Pidge—" He wasn't entirely sure why he whispered this, but couldn't quite bring himself to stop. But there was a feeling he couldn't shake. Ever since he'd fled from Shiro's cabin it's felt as if he wasn't really alone. Even as he finally put these words to this… this intuition but he glanced quickly over his shoulder. He was still unaccompanied as he moved stealthily through his home.

"Dude where have you been? There's this huge search going on for you! They're combing through the woods! Omygod I have to tell them that you're okay!"

Lance had balked away from the receiver. Her voice was so loud, not sure how to interrupt her stream of commentary, he already felt culpable enough. At her revelation about the search party though he almost had interjected. There was no way… how had he missed them? Perhaps it was the one lucky break he'd received, to have not run into any of the search party and silently he threw up a prayer of thanks. At her last comment however he quickly sputtered out a "NO! no not yet! Pidge please just give me a bit more time—"

"What?" She squawked. "Why the hell would I do that?"

Lance's breath hitched, and perhaps his friend could hear something in this small sound, his exhaustion, or his sincerity, he wasn't sure, but she waited in the silence that stretched between them, a distance that felt farther away than the two of them each stood, clutching phones to the sides of their cheeks. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you dude."

"Try me."

"I wish, I just don't have time. Look, I called cuz I need you to look up something for me—" he could practically feel her curiosity pique and questions fill her mind. He was eternally grateful when he simply heard her clacking away, lightning fast across her keyboard.

"One moment—" she muttered. Now that Lance knew Pidge was going to help him the boy began to move through his house once more, having paused in the shadow of the fear that she would put an end to his mission to save Rachel. Blue eyes scanned for his beloved shark plush. "Okay shoot."

"Okay okay uh, what does stang mean?" As he waited he made it up the stares to his shared room. But Tiburoncito wasn't where he'd left him, on top of his bed.

"Hmmm, it looks like a stang is just the past tense of sting. But that can't be what you're looking for… here we go. 'A stang, in it's most basic form, is simply a forked stick, set with it's long end into the ground and—'"

"What does that even m—"

"Wait I'm not done! 'When placed it acts as a…. road for other spirits from other… plains?' I'm with you Lance. And why do you need to know this stuff, it's all like… witchcraft nonese—hey wait a minute—"

"-Kay- thanks Pidge bye!"

"Lance wait!"

It was easier to wrack his brain for where he'd left Tiburoncito now that he was off the phone. He glanced behind the door and under the bed, digging through the now mostly unused toy box, feeling around for the familiar plush fabric. Even checking Rachel's bed. But all with no luck. The steps that carried him back into the hallway and towards the stairwell once more shook. He ran a hand back through his hair, sweat sticking it up, eyes shifting restlessly. There were other things he still had to get. But as he grew more and more flustered his thoughts scattered with his growing panic. Every second that passed felt like a noose tightening around his neck.

Or Rachel was having another respiratory attack.

"Is this what you're looking for?" An aged voice sounded from right behind him.

Lance spun, not sure how much more his heart could take as it seemed to jump up into his throat. His mouth went dry as he scrambled after a believable explanation, something, anything that could get him out of trouble.

This couldn't be over yet!

But nothing was coming to mind.

"I don't know what you've gotten yourself into amorcito…"

"A-abuela!" The petite Hispanic woman stood at the very end of the hallway, on the other side of Veronica's door. Her graying, almost white hair fell in small soft curl's from her braid, framing her leathered features. She wore a soft shapeless dress and her simple cotton rebozo draped across her shoulder like a shall, the traditional pattern hugging against her like a blessing from their very ancestors. Around her right wrist her cowry shell rosary shifted and clacked together, and in that ancient had she held Tiburoncito. She tossed it towards him and he fumbled to catch it. Her movement had caught him off guard. As he snatched it from the air a pulse of energy tingled at his fingertips and he stared, wide eyed, at his grandma. Lance wasn't sure how to feel about her crooked, knowing smile, and was halfway convinced that if he stayed even a moment longer to fire the number of questions that now piled up behind his teeth, then the trap would snap closed around him. His gaze flickered from her back down the stairs, where his escape route was both clear and assured. As his dubious gaze returned to her the short, old woman took a shuffling step forward, her hand reaching out to him.

The boy startled like a wild creature and dashed down the stairs, leaping the last few and bursting out of the front door. His timing couldn't have been more perfect. For he heard the low rumble of his family's old van making its labored way up the drive.

Lance dove into the juniper bushes at the boundary of the yard where he'd hidden the book. With heart pounding a mile a minute, sending an ache through out his chest, the boy crawled slowly and carefully away from his home as car doors slammed and the worried voices of his family filled the air around him like chains, making each push farther away from them harder and harder. The boy had to make his plan as clear as a diamond in his mind, as a guiding star, illuminating his next step.


	12. Chapter 12

Lance ended up improvising.

For starters the woods really was crawling with people, all of them shining their lights and calling his name. so now he found himself in a local park, one he hadn't played in for years. It was strange and nostalgic all rolled into one hard to describe feeling being here. Memories of before Rachel got sick sifted through his thoughts like a movie reel.

Her and Lance had each scraped themselves up good trying to see who could jump out of the swing the farthest. Rachel had dared her twin to balance like a tightrope walker across the monkey bars, and when he fell he'd busted his nose.

All of those and so many more had been such painful moments, and yet there'd been so much laughter in amongst the tears, and even now brought a small smile to his features, though a sadness tinged it.

It was ironic, to be setting up here. To Lance, it almost felt like a blessing. A place where Rachel had spent her happiest, healthiest years, and a wish, a wish that would bring those days back.

He stood in the middle of the bike trail, where the pathways intersected, one route leading down along the creak, and the other over to the street. This small area was protected from view by a small copse of trees.

It was late enough that he was alone, and would easily stay that way. Far enough back into the modest grove that he hoped he wouldn't be spotted from the road while he worked.

Lance took one last look around to be sure, but still he stood in solitude.

Perfect.

Even so the boys heart was beating out a dire staccato rhythm against his rib cage.

Without thinking on it anymore Lance dropped to his knees, digging into the cool gravel with his bare hands. In what was hopefully the center of the crossroads, or close to it. The top layer was nothing but hard, packed pebbles, which broke his carefully kept nails and tore through the flesh of his fingers. Of course he'd grabbed everything that he'd needed except for a shovel. Estupido. The boy pushed through it, and eventually he hit softer soil which almost felt good against his sore digits.

The book hadn't specified how deep he should go, but this would have to do.

As he pulled his hands free from the still shallow hole it took him a moment to realize through all the dirt that he was bleeding. At the site of the deep crimson mixed in with the smears of brown his heart skipped , as swiftly as he could the boy averted his gaze, wiping his hands gingerly onto his now grimy jeans, trying to rid them of the worst of the mess before he picked up Tiburoncito from where he was placed ever so carefully upon a stump. Without meaning to Lance gripped the soft stuffie, clinging onto the shark that had always fit so perfectly into his arms.

"Nos vemos en el otro lado de mi amigo" He whispered against the warm fabric. "Adios."

The boy dropped Tiburoncito as if he'd been burned, before he could change his mind, and as he pushed the loose shale over this shallow grave, the boy could not admit to himself how much his eyes stung.

Finally finished with that, what must have been the hardest step, Lance took a step back, dragging his forearm across his features, only to satiate the itch behind his lids of course. Grit smeared across his nose.

He searched around the small space he'd made for himself out here in the night, looking for the next piece to this puzzle that would save Rachel.

He pulled the small branch over to himself, sniffling as he held it up, driving in into the already softened earth. It was barely larger than a twig really. He'd found it in a desperate search on his way here, fallen from a tree. A slim Y of wood, with half of the bark still clinging onto the bottom part of it, and every other portion smoothed down by the elements and time. It was on this part that Lance had painstakingly carved the word "rowan" into it with nothing more than a stray paperclip he'd found at the inner most depths of his pockets. Lance didn't know a bit of Rowan wood from pinewood and so this was the best that he could do.

Once more he sent a prayer up, that this would be good enough.

Not that many of his prayers had been answered as of late.

Next, and finally, was the candle. he didn't really understand how the directions had phrased this, the color of a wish fulfilled? What did that even mean? His handful of old, half burned birthday candles were what he began to place into the ground at almost even intervals in a semi circle around the mound. Lighting them as he went, raw pad of his thumb growing more and more sore with each flick of the simple lighter.

Sweat gathered at his brow, and, forgetting momentarily his state of disarray Lance swiped at his forehead, smudging more mire across, which his bangs barely hid as they fell back into place.

When he was finished with that, Lance tilted his head. One way, and then another, examining his handy work. It could almost be mistaken for some sort of memorial, perhaps one erected for the death of his childhood.

As he thought this the boy couldn't tell if he was trying to make a joke… or not. Either way he didn't laugh.

Now what?

The number of small flames flickered as a sudden breeze picked up, and for the first time since he'd left Shiro's cabin Lance allowed the doubt he'd kept at bay through sheer force of desperation to creep up on him. It spread out through him like a drop of black ink, blotting out every aspect of his hope as if it were an eclipse.

This… this was all the instructions had said to do right?

Lance dove for the book before he became completely paralyzed by his own short comings. His digits hopelessly shuffling through the sheets at a speed which almost tore them from their leather binding. Until he found the dog eared page. It took him a moment to realize that this looked slightly different. The information on the parchment…. Were they changed somehow? He'd known that the letters moved on their own, the sketches shifting as if the creatures they depicted were alive, but… but he needed this information now. This fact was driven home as the distinct sound of a car passing by beyond the thicket of trees. His breath caught somewhere in his throat and he snapped his head up from the tome for a brief moment.

This had been the page the directions had been on right? Had they simply been replaced by other information for a completely different magical feet that would be of no use to him at all?

But no. Air whooshed out of his lungs. The scribbled steps were still there, but no longer did they simply take up the in between space at the hems. Now filling the entirety of the time stained vellum, letters shaking in their respective homes within the words as if their excitement was barely contained. Lance skimmed past the steps he'd already completed, pretending that he did not notice how the wording had changed ever so slightly. That didn't matter after all.

It was the extra bits, not tagged onto the end as if it had been there the entire time, that Lance focused on.

"Place your hand upon the stang. Call out 'the road is open!' And whomever comes forth shall be bound by the seeker's most heartfelt desire."

There was no way that could be it. This was all so simple. Despite his own hesitation however, he didn't doubt the books truth, for literally as he watched the letters were once more magically rearranging into something else entirely.

Lance dropped the book and stood, nerves jittering through them. He ignored the sudden thought that if anyone were to see him right now he'd probably look so stupid in his ripped and dirtied clothes, earth mixed in with blood smeared all across his skin. He shrugged and stepped forward. The grip upon the smallish branch was unsure and weak at first, but he'd not pushed it too deep into the soil, and it began to tilt, if only a little, and his hold tightened instantly, until his knuckles were white beneath the sepia of mud. He couldn't even feel the ache any more as excitement over road every other emotion and sensation. Lance licked his lips, which were suddenly so very dry, along with his mouth, and his throat, which he cleared, and uttered the words in a coarse voice barely above a whisper.

"The road is open."


	13. Chapter 13

As soon as the words left his mouth the reaction to the area was instantaneous and fantastical. The weak flickering flames of his little birthday candles burned black and the very air gained a certain ethereal luminescence. More of the lambent pitch blazes appeared midair around him, floating up and down, bobbing in place, so close to the boy that he felt as if he should have been able to feel their heat. And yet there was none. In fact a shiver rolled down Lance's body, for a chill had been set upon the atmosphere.

Against his palm the branch began to vibrate, and his gaze snapped back to the front. He couldn't let go and his other hand flew up to his wrist, heart beginning to pump faster and faster as if he were running. A glow lit up the small wood like a star had fallen into it.

This did burn, but his cry of pain was locked behind his gritted teeth as he tugged on his arm. Wind picked up around him, dragging at his clothes and lifting his hair, stinging at his eyes and swirling the loose gravel into the brief mandala of stone and leaf before wiping them away once more. No sound accompanied this gale.

A crack appeared in the stick, splintering up and out from beneath his palm, another formed, and the plank shattered like glass. Debris rocketed outward, past him, some of it embedding in his flesh. But Lance couldn't feel it, his very being was trembling from the energy held in this liminal space.

The hovering blazes extinguished as suddenly as they'd ignited, the glimmer that came from the very quality of the setting itself went dark as if there had been a switch flipped from the other side, and once more the normal sounds of the night resumed as if nothing had happened. Only one candle remained, the small fire settling after the eerie storm.

Lance waited with baited breath. Sensation slowly returned to him, the first was a warmth, that dribbled down his right cheek. Before the stinging pain of the multiple cuts set in. He resisted the urge to lift a hand to wipe away at the blood dripping down, but was too worried that if he moved at all, even allowed so much as a blink, he would miss something of vast importance.

Only… nothing really did happen.

"This can't be it!" His own voice startled him as he shouted into the swiftly chilling evening.

Maybe he'd done something wrong… well, he had, but he'd hoped…. He'd prayed that all of his shortcuts would somehow be enough. They simply hadn't been.

He could feel the prickle of tears teetering on the very edges of his eyelashes, a breath away from spilling over as his tenuous grip on this very last ray of hope slipped.

The boy couldn't start crying now though. He doubted that he would ever stop. He spun on his heels, ready to run straight back into the woods. Unsure exactly what his new plan was, only that he'd find another one of those damned faeries and ask, no demand, that they-

He barely spotted the looming shadow in time and almost fell back as he over corrected. Had he not Lance would have collided with the figure that stood suddenly alongside him at the crossroad. Even in the gloom of the night this silhouette was darker still. Despite the low illumination of the stars, and of the waxing crescent that was just now cresting over the tops of the trees, it was as if an obscurity hung over them both, and it was only due to the single, small, weak candle light that Lance was able to make out any details of this stranger at all. In this stunted tuscan glow that quivered, deceptively over the features. He noticed, first and foremost, the eyes that were focused with such incredible intent upon him were like a violet inferno rimmed by deepest eventide, set into an almost angelic face, which veritably gleamed in the gloom it was ever so pale.

More particulars became apparent as the boy looked on. Like how those teeth, set behind a wicked smile, were pointed like…. Like fangs.

Lance gulped, thoughts stuttering over the next terrifying minutia his eyes took in, and he was unable to drag his gaze away despite the fear that very suddenly had his blood turning to ice in his veins and his breath freezing within his lungs.

Horn's the color of ash, only a few shades lighter than the dusky locks, twisted up out of his hair, curving ever so slightly back, like some wild beast from an exotic foreign land, or long forgotten god of the hunt. The textured ridges, rough and sharp, spiraled up to the very tip. This almost human form was clothed in almost normal clothing. A crop top, the hue was a vague soot in the dim lighting. A look that the boy would normally pair swiftly with more feminine features, and yet the outline of muscles that could be seen in the twilight were definitively masculine. And at first glance it appeared as if the ebony jeans that clung seductively to his hips held no distinction between the fabric and the coarse fur that covered the cloven hooves that were present, instead of normal human legs and feet. Which might explain how this creature seemed so tall. At first all of this seemed like nothing more than an illusion, something that would shatter as soon as Lance looked away, or tilted his head at just the right angle of incredulity.

Though Lance felt as if he could not take in any more "odd" after everything, his eyes raked back up this uncanny body, a strange heat he didn't quite recognize as anything familiar, dripped like molten lava down through his center, thawing out his terror, which still remained, but transformed into something else, persisted in such a peculiar way, until, instead of that frost in his veins, flames pumped hard with his quickened heart beat, charring his insides. Heat crept up his neck into his cheeks.

There was so much more to take in. at Lance's initial pass he'd missed the long tail that swished back and forth as abruptly this larger than life figure somehow seemed to grow. It took the boy's mind a moment to catch up with what his eyes were seeing.

Wings. Almost like a bat's. Larger than life and the color of early morning mist rising through the woods. Their chroma was a gradient, moving from a darker ashen gray to an almost ghostly white closer to the tips. As they opened, spreading wide, the outline of gnarled bones were visible through the paper thin flesh. He looked somehow larger with this wingspan, and Lance tried not to shrink away.

This demonic entity before him, for that was all that could describe this overpowering presence, was…was…

He was stretching. Arms pulling back languidly, spine arched, pinion spanned as wide as the path through the trees around them would allow.

Lance took a step back, and another. Stumbling he almost fell again.

"You can't be the one who summoned me." The accent, similar and yet distinctly different from those beings of light and magic who dwelled in the woods, his voice was deep and the tone incredulous. The demon's lip was raised in a sneer that flashed more, sharp, pearly whites.

The boy swallowed hard, tongue flopping uselessly as he tried to gather himself up, along with some words to create a retort. But none came.

The monster's gaze had already slid off of him, as if he were no more interesting than a drifting speck of dust. Now he looked about in a lazy sort of way, obviously unimpressed with everything he saw. Maybe he thought there was someone else there. Well he would be even more than sorely disappointed. Lance wiped his hands, now slicked with cold sweat and utterly numb, on his jeans, appreciating now the normal movement as an anchor. With a small cough he cleared his throat and his words, prepared in this short amount of time that the beast had been looking around, now repeated in his head. Yet he still almost lost them as that intense gaze focused on him once again, more appraising than before.

Such a weird thing was happening to him, his breath came faster, a shortness of breath as he locked eyes with the creature. Lance felt pulled in by those mesmerizing irises, more enthralled by this terrifying devil than any of the sprites from earlier. Lance felt as if a spotlight were trained upon him, and suddenly like butterflies were set upon him, dusted wings fluttering in anxious crescents within his stomach.

"I wish for you to heal my sister Rachel!" He stated in the clearest voice he could possibly muster, which still trembled as it left him, breathless once more.

"You have got to be kidding me~" this sentiment was practically growled out in the demon's obvious annoyance, and Lance tried not to flinch as the other reached up, only to scratch the back of his own head with his dark, talon like nails. The boy wondered if he'd been heard, and he took in a steadying breath, readying to repeat himself, louder than before. But he didn't get to even clear his throat before the creature was speaking again. "you're just a damn kid." It was hard, even in this gloom, to miss the way those heliotrope eyes rolled heavenward. "What could you possible want, a new bike or something?" He snorted.

Immediately Lance bristled, not just at the words, but at how impressed this complete carbon seemed to be by them.

"Excuse you!" His mouth was running ahead of him as it usually did. "I see that you got ears, but they must not be working." His voice no longer shook, his fear momentarily forgotten in his sudden flash of indignation.

Thick eyebrows rose into the coal hairline, and the sneer dropped from his darkly handsome features, just for a second, before it was hitched back up into place, somehow harsher than before…. A sharpness set too it. Lance didn't allow the man to get in a single other word though. Bolstered by his sudden burst of either bravery or stupidity he took a step forward, and another, squaring his shoulders as he did so.

"What I wish for isn't small, why would I call on you—"

An unreadable look passed over the beast's face, but the boy tried not to let himself be distracted by what it could mean.

"Save—my—sister." Lance stated slowly, as if he were speaking to a child. He jutted his chin out and stared this damn condescending demon down.

Realization dawned over the other's features slowly, and his eyes widened, the blackness surrounding that vibrant burst of color, all looks of disdain were replaced by sheer shock. Before, with an obvious effort, a blank mask of calm slipped down. But for just an instant lance thought he caught a glimpse of…. Worry?

"You should not have summoned me."

"Do you not get it! I had no other choice!" His voice echoed back at him through the trees. His shout surprised both of them, and the frightening creature took a startled step back.

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he was finally able to force out a cryptic statement that almost sounded like a warning, and only managed to anger Lance more.

"You don't understand what you've done."

"Yes I do!" Lance was trying and failing to keep his tone even, his voice steady and low, but it shook with the effort, no longer in fear. "I'm biding you to me! Like how Shiro bound the others to him, like Allura and Cor—"

"Wait—you know Shiro?" If a demon could blanch than this one just had, his shock clear.

But the boy plowed straight on through the other's inquiry, "nevermind that! Please I—"

And the beast steamrolled directly over Lance's words.

"This isn't like that! It is a binding but it's different kid! It's not an equal exchange it's…. it's…. hard to explain, I can't—"

"I don't care!" Lance was yelling against and he couldn't hope to reign it in this time. "I don't need an explanation! I just need Rachel to be okay again!"

The hands that gripped his shoulders did not give in the slightest as normal human flesh would. They were as hard as sone, but instead of the chill or sculped rock this touch seemed to burn, even through his clothes. "Listen to me Lance. The price for that would be your soul." The demon's face was so close to his own, breath upon his lips. Distraction enough from the other's words, at least for a few exhales as they slowly swirled in his mind.

Once they finally did though they brought the boy up short, mid-thought, caught between a question and a revelation just barely out of reach. He blanched, breath caught in a tight knot balled up in his throat. Lance didn't even have time to wonder if he'd told the other his name, for how else had he known?

Finally Lance was able to dislodge his voice and breathlessly, his words all slamming together, he managed to spit them out. "But-but-that's-not-what-the-book-said!"

"Yeah it wouldn't, books can be tricky that way." As the demon withdrew his hands the chill of the night came all at once rushing into Lance and he shivered violently, teeth clattering together in a pathetic, noisy display. "You gotta learn how to read between the lines there boy." An emotion almost like panic rippled across the demon's features in a close to human way.

"I—No-! I can't just—there has to be—" Now Lance couldn't finish a sentence, dismay roiling in him like a living thing. He was so close! His vision slanted, blurred and he found it difficult to focus on the other, who shifted restlessly from hoof to hoof, body moving in such an alien way that the boy felt as if, had he been looking straight on, he might have been hypnotized. He might have also noticed how agitated the demon was.

But all of these things remained overlooked and unseen as the boy fought to regain any semblance of control.

"Usually, you brat—" He finally interrupted Lance's halting silique, "I can't leave ~this realm~ until I've… procured a contract from the one who summoned me. But never before have I been called up by … one so young—" As he spoke he began to pace back and forth, arms gesturing in Lance's direction, tail lashing the air in a vexed manner, pauses unintentional as he sought out just the right words. As if he did not often think before he spoke. He neared the single birthday candle that remained and sneered down at it in disdain, as he did so the last life of the fire spluttered out. "Really?" He muttered under his breath, obviously more to himself than to Lance, losing the thread of his previous train of thought. "I'm surprised this even worked at all…" With a snort he shook his head, hair shifting with it, and tail slowing to a mere twitch. His wings he had folded back in against his body. "Perhaps…. If some part of the spell were to be…. Disturbed… the offering dug up?" He was now definitely talking to himself, thinking out loud. A clawed hand was held out, hovering over the loose mound of dirt.

Following along with all the words the demon said was making Lance feel a tad dizzy, head spinning with so much information, concepts of his world expanding, and fluctuating. Soon enough though he realized what the demon was suggesting. The boy sprang into action and dashed over.

"Wait no!" Lance tackled him, or it would have been one if the demon had budged at all. Instead his shoulder collided with what felt like solid granite, still his arms wrapped futily around the torso, feet skidding over the gravel which rolled beneath the rubber of his sneakers. "It's worth it." The words were nothing more than a quiet sob, muffled from where his face was pressed into the cloth of the demon's shirt.

"What?" The voice that resounded above Lance's head was a low rumble of thunder in the distance, the tail now whipped around with such harshness that a sharp sound cut through the air. With ease he unhooked Lance's arms and pushed the boy away. "Try again, and maybe this time don't cry about it."

Lance clenched his fists and screwed his eyes shut tight, as he pulled in a deep breath. Trying once more, this time not allowing even a slight tremble to enter through his words, undermining them. "I said it's worth it—"

"You don't know what you're talking about kid—" Lance was interrupted, but he kept on talking over the other, tone wavering only as his volume rose.

"You can take my soul if it saves Rachel—"

"—it's more complicated than that—"

"—Just do it already!"

They were both yelling at each other at this point, but Lance had already come so far, risked so much. He would not have done this all needlessly! Put his family through the hell he already had!

"You need to… just slow down! Understand that at the very least!"

"You don't get to tell me what to do! And I don't hafta 'understand' the magic for it too work!" Lance quieted slightly still, crossing his arms, "What does it even matter to you?"

A tormented look passed like a cloud over the demon's eyes, darkening the features there for just a heartbeat, and passed so quickly that Lance wondered if it had been there at all, or if he'd just imagined it.

With a dismissive, flippant gesture of his hand the creature went silent. He brought his claws to his mouth in what could almost be construed as a nervous gesture, and for a moment there was nothing but silence, heavy in the atmosphere around him.

"You doing this is on you child."

"Of course—" Lance didn't yet allow himself to feel anything, "you'll… you'll do it?"

There was nothing more than a single, curt nod.

Lance laughed, tears cascading down his cheeks in a sudden rush, and if he hadn't just fallen, dizzy with this victory, onto his haunches, he might have run to the demon, given him a huge bear hug that would put Hunk to shame.

"Graci—"

"Don't thank me." The growl shook everything, even the air that Lance gasped in. "you don't get it do you? If I take your soul… now- you die kid…"

The reality of the words took a few excruciating seconds to sink in. when it finally did his blue eyes widened and the tears stopped. Everything stopped. His breath held captive and growing stale in his lungs, his heart frozen mid beat.

"And… you won't be able to… go back home… until I… do this?" Lance wasn't entirely sure how he managed to force these words out as he was still choking on his very own breath. Nor did he fully understand why, of all things, this was the question he asked, the possibility he focused on. But he pictured the ludicrous prospect of this very obviously not human guy just, following him around in school, sitting with him at home between Rachel and Veronica at the dinner table. It was too much and the boy felt laughter like bubbles… or thorns building up within his chest, about to burst from him if only he'd release his breath. Hysteria sat like a blade across his throat. Once it spilled forth from him he wasn't sure if it'd ever stop.

"That's not what I'm worried about." The demon muttered rubbing a hand back through his hair, fingers dancing around the base of his horns, stray strands curling about them. "There are much worse things than being stuck here."

Lance was barely listening. He wasn't even calculating his options. The answer was easy. He'd come this far, after all.

"Do it." His voice scratched out of him. Lance looked up as he said this, meeting the demon's gaze with clear, sure eyes, hue as light as a clear afternoon sky.

It was so strange to watch as such a imperial creature such as the one who stood before him fidget shifting from hoof to hoof, the gravel clattering beneath him.

"There might be some leeway…I can… no not quite… you could reword your wish… I can add stipulations to the contract. It will mean that…. It'll give you more time. You might be able to live longer, but…" It felt as if every word the other forced out was chosen with great care. Despite this caution Lance's heart regained a normal rhythm once again, and a new type of hope pulsed within him. The boy had not expected his soul, or his death, to be a part of the price. Honestly he'd been foolish to think that there wasn't a price at all. This gift of being able to have his cake and eat it took, was akin to the floor falling out from beneath him, but a rope appearing right before he fell, saving him.

"That's good-great!" Lance shook his head, trying to find some steady ground to to gather his bearings. "What—" He cleared his throat, licking his lips, "what should I say?"

The demon's mouth was moving but Lance wasn't quite following along. It didn't matter. Everything would be so perfect again. And once his time came? Well… he'd… he'd have to cross that bridge when he got to it, and until then he'd create as many happy, lasting memories with his family as he could… if he didn't spend the entire duration being grounded for running away.

"-You can't tell anyone about this for obvious reasons. If any of these terms are breached there will be varying, and extreme conseq—are you even listening?" Lance's focus snapped back onto the demon.

"I—Yes! Just tell me what—"

"I was Lance. The most I can do… you weren't really listening were you?" He looked more pained than Lance had thought possible for a creature such as him.

"—If—you agree to never see this Rachel again, I can push it out to…" The beast looked upwards, holding up fingers as some unknown equation played out in his head, "seven years before I come to claim your soul. That is the most time I'd be able to give you. It's—" It was so hard to follow along with the demon's explanation, this was why the exhausted boy had lost focus to begin with!

"Dios get to the point!" Lance hadn't meant to snap, and common sense dictated that he maybe just shut his mouth.

"You can never see your family again." Lance asked for succinction…. Not for this bluntness. He blanched, falling back.

"Wait what? Why? How does that even—"

"I'm not explaining it all again you absolute child." Lance balked, voice catching in his throat like the scratch of a skeletal finger.

"At least—" The boy scrambled after something, anything. "At least let me say goodbye!"

The demon shifted, arms crossing as a thoughtful look passed over his face. "That'll take some time off, but I can—"

"I don't understand how this works—" Lance moaned, dismay crackling through his system, but the demon spoke over him, ignoring his statement.

"Five years."

Lance opened his mouth, but torn nothing came out from it. He blinked slowly, gradually processing, torn between so many emotions. Five years was so much time to a thirteen year old! But he knew it wasn't that long at all… a steep price to pay for only getting to say goodbye.

Even with all of that culminating into a storm of thought in his mind Lance knew what his answer was. Still his voice would not push out from him and his mouth tongue would not form the words. So at first there was nothing more to do than to unstick…. Well… everything.

The demon waited not so patiently, shifting and fidgeting endlessly. The energy he'd raised elevated the hair on Lanc'es body like static.

"Deal—" Lance finally managed to croak out. "Do we uh… shake on it? Or should I sign something?" Lance raked his mind for other adult like things that would be done in this situation.

But the creature had stopped moving. Even his tail halted mid swing. Had gone so still that Lance's gaze flicked to him nervously. Red flooded up into the other's pale features adding a depth to the previous monochrome countenance with the crimson juxtaposed nicely with the purple in his eyes… Why had he just thought that?

"is something wrong?" He croaked out, and thought he might have to ask again, ready to repeat himself, louder and more distinct than before, when finally the other spoke, a bit more hoarse himself.

"Actually it's a—" He cleared his throat, which was such a strange thing to witness, coming from a monster that looked as he did. "A kiss."

"A what!" Lance squeaked, his own flush rising in his cheeks to mirror the demons. It was his turn to flush, hand coming up to cover the lingering blush, as if in that way alone he'd be able to play it off.

"Hey it's not my favorite part either kid!" The creature threw his hands up in the air, though Lance doubted very much that the other was as flustered as he was, not that he wanted to say… "It's not like I wanna steal some brat's first kiss!"

"Wha—no way!" Lance's voice was too loud in the quiet of the night, his laugh lasting much too long. But the boy wasn't quite able to deny this, or brush it off in any natural fashion and as his hysteria faded an awkward silence filled the air around them. The heat in his cheeks grew and he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

He glanced quickly up at the demon, regretting that decision instantly, for the otherworldly ma had one eyebrow raised and a smirk upon his face that reminded Lance of the teasing, flirtatious expressions on older boy's faces at school. The boy closed his eyes, readying for the barrage of mocking, when nothing came he peaked out.

The demon was closer now, a breath away, and Lance was not at all prepared. His hands dashed out to push the creature away. His hands dashed out to push the demon away. It did little and his eyelids fluttered. Warm hands cupped against his cheeks. "don't worry." If he had any will left Lance might have bristled at this, denied it to his last breath. "You'll be seeing me before you're times up—I'll be around." Lance couldn't even begin to imagine what all the demon meant by that before there was no more time left to think at all.

The demon's lips were so much softer against his own than Lance would have ever expected.

The initial sensation hadn't even ended when there was a sudden searing pain that sank in against the flesh of his neck, right over his pulse, above which the other's large hands lay.

The boy gasped and pulled back, a low hiss of discomfort escaping him as his eyes scrunched closed against it. His hand came up to his neck, feeling beneath his pads how quickened his heartbeat had become, but due to what? The burn or the kiss? Lance couldn't quite tell, but there was another sensation beneath his digits. Raw and raised flesh, sensitive to the touch and formed in a specific pattern. The boy couldn't quite discern the shape or purpose of.

"What the he—" he began, planning on questioning the creature in depth about what in the world that had been for, whatever that was.

But he was alone in the darkness of night once more. Not even the whisper of wind nor the flicker of a flame to keep him company.


End file.
